The Black Dossier, Volume II
by Draco Orwell
Summary: A supplement to the book-within-a book from Alan Moore and Kevin O' Neill's seminal Graphic Novel: 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Black Dossier'.
1. Introduction

Introduction:

The following entries are supplements to Gerald O'Brien's 1957 work: '_The Black Dossier'_, specifically to the section entitled 'The Sincerest Form of Flattery', which listed attempts aside from the six main British attempts (under Prospero in 1610, Gulliver in 1750, Murray in 1898, 1909 and 1964, and Samson Jr. in 1946) to create a so-called 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'.


	2. The First American League - 1875

In response to the mysterious British 'Fogg League' of the 1870s, of which little is known (the records of this group were possibly destroyed by the British Government), Ulysses S. Grant's Administration commissioned the formation of it's own 'League'.

This League was organised by prolific Secret Service Agent and Civil War hero Captain J.T. West, who travelled far and wide across the American continent in his 'Wanderer' locomotive to track down the legendary heroes he sought to recruit.

The heroes he managed to secure included:

- Joaquin Mason, a descendant of the Spanish-rule era Vigilante known as 'The Fox', and the latest in a line of adventurers to hold that mantle (although reportedly not the most successful or effective in that role). Mason was perhaps the most amiable of the group, seemingly less brooding and grim as many of his cohorts as he was enthusiastic and gallant.

- Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate soldier who valiantly spent several years after the conclusion of the Civil War searching for his kidnapped niece. Edwards was a seasoned and hardened tracker, but his distrust of Native and African Americans, and his sometimes aggressively conservative attitude, set him apart from his more liberal, unionist allies.

- The 'Man with no Name', although referred to by several monikers, this renowned but mysterious gunslinger's past and identity was never recorded. Although an extremely adept rifleman, this silent and stoic rogue had very ambiguous motivations, an obscure personality, and a somewhat ruthless streak. The Man was said to be surprisingly easy-going, but still remained very distant from his colleagues.

- Bartholomew Maverick, a suave gambler and socialite, perhaps the most recognizable brother of his elite siblings, Maverick was recruited to the team to help infiltrate high society if necessary to the mission. Maverick was considered the jokester of the League, not because he was a fool (he was far from one), but because of his wit and sarcasm. A Don Juan figure if there ever was one.

- Lulu Colt, a woman known for her masculine pursuits, such as poker and gunmanship, in which she excelled so brilliantly, her abilities could rival that of many men. Colt was an Italian with a fiery temper, a liberal sexuality, and a strong feminist personality that predated such thinking becoming widespread as it did by the end of the century. This independent streak may have been the chagrin of Maverick and West, but it allowed Colt to develop a mutual respect and admiration between herself and 'The Man'.

This League was quite successful, and despite the political and social disagreements held between its members, it held together for nearly 6 full years.

During this time the 'Cowboy' League, as it became known, succeeded in a variety of government assigned undertakings, these included:

- Liberating the dwarf commune of 'Tiny Town' after it was conquered and subjugated by Captain West's arch-nemesis, Miguelito Loveless. (1875)

- Incarcerating the infamous and vengeful outlaw known as Django, who nearly annihilated Grant's lawmen with his advanced gatling gun. (1876)

- Fighting on numerous occasions the villainous middle-eastern mastermind known as 'The Demon's Head', foiling multiple of his schemes (as did many other heroic figures in that period), but never quite defeating him. (1877 - 1880)

- Finding the legendary Lost Dutchman's Goldmine, but then abandoning it and keeping the location a government secret after the mine turned out to be infested with an enormous species of sandworm, large enough to eat a full grown man (another colony of these worm-like creatures was discovered in Nevada in 1889). (1878)

The 'Cowboy League' began to fall apart in early 1881, while the League was working under the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, during an assassination attempt on Tokei-Ihto, the Lakota Chief helping to delay US expansion into Indian territories with his undaunted resistance.

'The Man' refused to be involved in the mission, claiming, "The chief has a point".

Lulu, due to her strong friendship with 'The Man', sided with him, refusing to partake in the attempted killing, and the two decided to depart the League.

Hayes ordered Capt. West to hold up the shooting, and instead track down the two 'deserters', West and the rest of the League was then ordered to either arrest or take the couple down in case they let the confidential information about the government's plans leak to the Indians.

The ethical Maverick refused to do such a thing to his old friends, but pretended to go along with the plan in order to hatch his counterplan.

West, Mason, Edwards and Maverick were able to corner The Man and Colt in the hamlet of Mayberry, North Carolina. The couple was sleeping in each other's arms within a saloon guest room when the four agents prepared to dispatch them, but then two fugitives appeared from behind the failed assassins, having been told by Maverick beforehand of their former team's intentions, the couple in the bed were merely dressed up store mannequins.

Maverick joined The Man and Lulu, and the two evenly numbered groups took their fight to the deserted, uncovered main street of Mayberry, and begun a standoff.

Perhaps tragically, there were no quick draw victories in said duel, and a savage gun battle ensued. Edwards was shot through the chest by The Man, who was then promptly shot himself by Mason.

The third generation Fox took cover from the hail of bullets let out by a vengeful Lulu, but was heavily maimed and later died of his injuries.

Lulu and Maverick appeared to have the upper hand over West, but the gadget-equipped spy bloodily ended both their lives with his prototype percussion hand grenade, which left the poor souls corpses mangled and disgusting (although rumor persists that Maverick survived, or used a body double and was never at the stand-off to begin with).

West returned seemingly unrepentant to Washington D.C., where he continued his career (although never managing to complete the attempt on Tokei-Ihto's life) unmoved by the horrid deaths of his teammates.


	3. The Celestial League - 1899

After his defeat at the hands of Mina Murray's 1898 League, the London Limehouse based, Chinese terrorist known as The Devil Doctor decided to form his own League to assist him in his fight against European imperialism in Asia. The Doctor recruited his team from all over the Orient, barely needing an introduction to most of them considering his reputation (which was of a fanatical madman in Europe and America, but of a freedom fighter in much of his home region).

The 'Celestial' League, as The Doctor dubbed it, was made up of the following personalities:

- Pao The Invisible, purported to be a distant cousin of The Doctor's, this megalomaniacal chine science villain acted as this League's response to the Hawley Griffin Invisible Man, due to his apparent ability to physically dematerialize. Pao was young, but had a great ability with new technology, designing nefarious weapons for the Celestial cause.

- Zatoichi The Blind, a virtuoso sword master from Japan who, despite his disability, was in every sense a force to be reckoned with. Zatoichi had sworn to protect the innocent from the criminal Yakuza gangsters of Japan, and very much saw The Doctor as akin to them, being an astute manipulator though, The Doctor managed to convince the Blind master of his good intentions concerning the liberation of colonial Asia. Despite this alliance, the two figures tended to argue about motivation often.

- Mola-Ram, a young priest and dark magician of the revived Thugee cult in Western India. Ram sought sacred and powerful objects to assist in his quest for global domination. With his knowledge of potions, spells and other terrifying mystical practices, this Kali-loyal priest proved a useful apprentice to the older Devil Doctor.

- The Demon's Head – the dark master that had previously battled with the First American League, and other notable American heroes such a J. Hex. The Demon headed his own League, one made up of international assassins, and aligned with The Devil Doctor despite technically being his criminal rival due to their shared anti-imperial goals. Despite his similarities with The Doctor (and similarly shrouded past), The Demon maintained an uneasy alliance with his associate, perhaps due to his own hidden, and much more nefarious motivations.

- Lady Oyuki – an exceptionally beautiful woman with unmatched ability in swordsmanship, martial arts and concealment. Oyuki was working as a latter-day Ronin when The Doctor enlisted her from her home in the Shikoku region of Japan. The Lady joined the League mainly based on the promise she would be able to learn from Zatoichi, which she did, creating a strong master-student bond between the two Nipponese blade-masters.

This League operated from both The Devil Doctor's establishment in the Limehouse district of London, and from the Demon's assassins' fortress in Nepal.

The Celestials worked together fairly effectively, despite occasional drawbacks due to many of the members having ties to other organizations that would cause them to become unavailable at points.

Exploits of the Western dubbed 'Yellow Perils' included:

- Assisting the Militia and Qing Dynasty's' forces in the Boxer Rebellion (1898 – 1901), but on the request of Zatoichi and Oyuki, not against the Japanese forces deployed in the enemy Eight-Nation Alliance.

- Aiding The Demon and his society in their ongoing source for Ayesha's immortal pool, which was believed to grant true immortality, which judging by later revelations about The Demon's identity, was an interesting treasure to seek.

- Working with the Japanese (despite their close alignment to Europe as displayed earlier in the Boxer war) to secure an historic victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904 – 1905). Pao's knack for technology led him to help improve Japan's formidable _Gotengo_ submersible, the Nipponese answer to the _Nautilus_ that assisted in the great victory. However at this point The Doctor was beginning to become concerned with Japanese empire's increasing nationalistic and expansionist attitudes.

- Clashing with the Second American League on multiple occasions, most notably in 1907 in the fabled city of Shangri-La, in which notably both the Yankee and Celestial Leagues encountered British League regular Orlando. This battle ended with a stalemate when neither side whished to continue fighting in such a serenely peaceful place.

This League's association came to a dark conclusion in 1911, when the Celestials managed to obtain a section of the Monkey King's Stone, possibly the most powerful artifact known to Chinese legend.

The Stone manifested grand magic from the influence of Heaven, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, and could be used in ways that could defy reality.

They stone was sold by a mysterious trader who identified himself as 'The Turtle Hermit', who lived in the Gao village of central China. The hermit claimed to be from another realm, and to own other sacred objects such as Princess Kayuga's Bamboo Stalk. The trader gave the Celestials the piece of sacred rock with the promise they would never use it for evil. The trader then promptly disappeared soon after the meeting, never to be heard from again.

Despite the promise given to the hermit by The Devil Doctor and company, The Demon's Head had other ideas, manipulating his allies into a wild-goose-chase based on a false lead on Ayesha's pool, while The Demon claimed to have work to do with his assassins.

Fortunately the Celestials returned to their Himalayan headquarters early. The Demon had been preparing a ritual in which the Stone Fragment's energy would have been channeled into the skies of the world, rapturing the souls of whomever The Demon chose, and fulfilling his dream of halving the world's population.

The Devil Doctor was disgusted by The Demon's betrayal of trust, and set his League to battle the Demon's own and reclaim the stone.

During the epic, martial art focused fued, Pao was able to confiscate the magic fragment thanks to his invisibility, but was quickly overpowered by The Demon's assassins, who Zatoichi had trained (unaware he would have to fight them himself) to fight using senses other than sight such as he had, so a lack of visible form proved no impediment to them.

The Blind Master himself was overpowered by the same assassins, who distracted Zatoichi with clanging gongs, disorientating him and then brutally decapitating him.

The death of her old master enraged Oyuki, who then fought stupendously, and viciously well, carving her way through the Ninjas like human cannonball.

As Ram rescued Pao, The Demon became worried of defeat, and decided to take the stone and leave, but not before engaging Oyuki in close combat.

Clearly the demonic master was no match for Oyuki's fiery skill, so instead he ended the fight with an engineered conclusion, firing a flare gun, signaling his sycophants to trigger an explosive launched avalanche from above the fortress, which buried the structure.

When The Devil Doctor's own lackeys arrived to dig out the bodies, they found their master, Pao and Mola-Ram unconscious, but Oyuki dead, with the Demon's body and the stone nowhere to be found.

When the tri came to, Ram became heavily disturbed by the outcome of the situation, and The Doctor's passive response to the situation only further enraged him, so he turned his back on his two colleagues, and returned to his home in Pankot, where his destiny turned out ironically close to that of The Demon's.

Although initially the worrying that The Demon had escaped with the stone fragment plagued the two remaining Celestials, Pao's surveillance airship found it in a river below the mountain, motivating The Doctor to bury it in a location never revealed. The two possible cousins then went their separate ways, burying their own remorse, if they had any, deep inside them, and only staying in contact through yearly letters from then on.


	4. The Second American League - 1901

After the success of the First Murray League in defending the British Isles from Martian Invasion in 1898, President William McKinley toyed with the idea that it may be necessary for the United States to revive it's own League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

After McKinley's assassination, incumbent President and adventurer in his own right, Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt, fast-tracked these plans and within his first few months in office, had handpicked his own League of heroes and rogues to coincide with his expansion of the US Secret Service. This team was comprised of:

- Irene Norton (née Adler), an opera singer, former enemy of Sherlock Holmes, and one of the great detectives' few foes to have been outsmarted by. Irene had been living peacefully with her husband Godfrey since the end of the so-called 'Scandal in Bohemia' that she had been the center of. Although initially unwilling to join the League, President Roosevelt offered Mrs. Norton a considerable sum of money to act as his League's Wilhelmina Murray surrogate, and to lend her vast cunning and intelligence to his cause.

- John Reid, a former horseback vigilante, who brought enforced law and order on the American frontier during its 'wild west' years. Reid was passed his prime when he was approached for the League, but was still operating along with his Native American subordinate. Reid joined based on the offer that the United States government would pardon him for his civil disobedience as a costumed vigilante (along with 'The Fox', Reid was one of the first so called 'masked heroes').

- Ton-Toh, Reid's right hand man, still loyal to his Anglo ally after decades of crime fighting. T.T. was tremendously good at receiving orders and carrying out plans, and was admired by all who knew him for his fearlessness, chivalry and hard working, unquestioning attitude.

- Agent Tom Sawyer, former explorer, then detective and now the poster boy of the US secret service. Sawyer was an idealistic, but somewhat remissive and exploitative spy, who acted almost as an apprentice to veteran adventurers Roosevelt and Reid, but also occasionally a vexation to them and the other League members, as a cocky, arrogant and inconsiderate attitude often came through in his actions.

- Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, the renowned 'Thinking Machine', a detective, an escape artist, and a future ally of Janni Nemo. Van Dusen was an exceptional person both mentally, where he was unmatched in problem solving ability, and socially, where he was a gentleman's gentleman, quick witted and kind. Van Dusen, Mrs. Norton and Mr. Reid often enjoyed games of skill with each other such as Chess and the like, due to their shared admiration for each other's intellect.

This League was vastly more unified than it's predecessor, lacking most of the bickering, infighting, and eventual betrayal that ruined the so-called 'Cowboy League', due mainly to the good working relationship between the members (with Sawyer being the one outlier due to his far younger age than his colleagues). This unity led to a much longer lasting team, and a far less tragic conclusion. Missions undertaken by this League comprise of, but are not limited to:

- Performing numerous covert missions in the Philippine – American War, and many of the numerous 'Banana Wars' of the early 20th century.

- As mentioned in the entry for The Celestial League, confronting numerous times the team formed by The Devil Doctor, including in Shangri-La during 1907.

- Helping test the revolutionary automaton, created as a more advanced successor to the Steam Man of the Prairies, called 'Boilerplate'. They did this by taking the mechanical champion on several of their missions, where his success almost overshadowed that of the Leagues' own.

- Battling numerous 'master criminals' of the era, including the self-christened, foreign mastermind Doctor Death, lesser Devil Doctor imitators Dr. Wu Fang and Dr. Yen Sin, and the Gallic crime syndicate known as 'Les Vampires'.

This League had most of its success in the period prior to the US entry into World War 1 in 1917, when the team ended up being split up by then President Woodrow Wilson to each take charge of different aspects of the war effort. Norton and Van Dusen worked in Intelligence, Reid and T.T. reunited as field commanders, and Sawyer as a Captain in the Marines.

The war took it's toll on the group, with Van Dusen resigning midway through his service after being scarred by the atrocities he saw, leaving instead to join the Nemo family on Lincoln Island.

Reid to was disturbed by the industrialized barbarity he witnessed, as his mounted division he and T.T. led was torn apart by modern weaponry, nearly killing the two. Reid retired from service after the conclusion of the war, and passed away shortly afterwards. T.T. chose to retire too in respect for his fallen friend after said passing.

Only Norton and Sawyer remained in the League, but were estranged from each other after Norton's disgust at the Missouri born Officer's actions as a Captain, in which he led many Men to their deaths while staying far behind them. Sawyer was never punished for these technically war criminal actions, but his friendship with Norton was broken irreparably.

Although the Second American League was over due to the fate of it's members, Norton stayed with the newly formed FBI as a senior advisor post-war, and Sawyer went on to help organize the next American incarnation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.


	5. The First Archeologist's League - 1907

Organized by young Historian and Oxford University alumnus Marcus Brody during his brief tenure at the Jeffersonian Institution in Washington D.C. (the future headquarters of celebrated forensic anthropology unit led by Dr. 'Bones' Brennan), The Archeologist's League may not have been a secret intelligence organization like the other League's recorded in The Black Dossier, but this team and it's successors are still worth mentioning due to the nature of their adventures, and the notability of their members.

Brody set up this League with his good friend and colleague Dr. Harry Jones Sr., with the objective of creating a troupe of Archeologists capable of dealing with the more supernatural elements of historical finds.

The members of the group Brody and Jones eventually joined together were all experts in their fields, and they were as follows:

- Dr. Jones Sr., the organizer himself took the leadership role of the League himself, having the greatest interest in its goal due to his lifelong obsession with recovering the Holy Grail. Jones was a Scottish Archeologist specializing in Medieval Literature, and despite his reluctance to get into the same physical action his Son became famous for; he was committed to his cause. Jones was very much an introvert though, caught up in his work and occasionally quiet antisocial in his behavior.

- Dr. Emily Sands, a youthful and enthusiastic Egyptologist from England whose optimism and charisma was greater than her actual ability as an archeologist. Sands' early career success came despite her gender (the suffragette movement still had a while to go at this time) and lack of field skills, and mainly through her familial connections, though possibly from her appearance as well. The woman's recruitment to the team came on the request of her mentor, Marcus Scarman.

- Prof. Marcus Scarman, an amiable, but somewhat reserved Egyptologist who taught both Brody and Sands at Oxford University at different points. Scarman was an eminent lecturer and explorer, revered by others in the Archeological field. It was this reputation that caused great excitement in Brody and Jones after convincing Scarman to join their League, although Scarman's mysterious disappearance in 1911 while searching for the Eye of Osiris cut his service for them short.

- Dr. Sven Nelson, an American-Swede known widely as the father of future costumed hero and host of the being called 'Nabu', Kent Nelson, but also a notable archeologist in his own right. Nelson was an expert in early human cultures, such as the Babylonians, the Hyborianittes and the Cimmerians, and actively attended digs around the Middle East throughout most of his career. Nelson was a very respectable man, and his death in 1920 during his expedition to the Valley of Ur in Mesopotamia (in modern day Q'mar) was a widely mourned in the academic world.

- Prof. Takeo Yamatone, a Japanese Archeologist who later became better known for his awakening of the Atlantean superhero The Golden Bat in 1930. Yamatone was also an expert in early cultures, particularly in religions and mythologies, so the League's focus on the supernatural fit well with his interests. Yamatone was somewhat of an arrogant person, but his skills as an historian were great.

Despite it's impressive line-up, The First Archeologist's League never really had a chance to shine. The year after the team was created, Jones Sr. had to go on a lecture tour that lasted for three years, and so the League really only had early 1910 into mid 1911 before Scarman's untimely disappearance in which they accomplished anything. After this brief window, the League's association became infrequent, and was essentially put on hold during the Great War, when the fighting in the Middle East and Africa, which removed a large portion of the area the League wished to focus on, and the general disruption on the home front, made it an inopportune time for their organization.

After Nelson's death in 1920, the remaining colleagues agreed to disband the League in respect for their fallen ally.

During the brief time the League had to operate, they went on expeditions such as:

- To the kingdom of Khemed in the Persian Gulf, to search for the mystical, jinn summoning Ring and Oil Lantern used by the legendary thief and emperor known as Aladdin. This was an unsuccessful venture. (1910)

- From the last location across to the subcontinental empire of Lugash, seeking the origin of the brilliant Pink Diamond held for thousands of years by that nation's monarchy. Again, an unsuccessful mission. (1911)

- After a time, to the British East African colony of Bangalla, in search of the fabled 'Skull Cave', home of the phantasmal character known to myth as 'The Ghost who walks'. Although the team didn't find complete their primary objective, they did discover the remains of an old pirate ship, run aground hundreds of years earlier, which yielded many treasures, which were split between the British Government and the Jeffersonian, so it was not as unsuccessful as the League's two previous outings. (1911)

- Sometime after Scarman's disappearance, to Equatorial Kundu, West Africa, in search of the lost city of Opar, which according to myth was a colony of Atlantis. This was a return to the lack of success the League had pre-Bangalla expedition. (1912 – 1913).

The relative failure of this League was disappointing to Jones, who even went as far to say that he believed it had been cursed, much like Howard Carter's Tutankhamen expedition, which Emily Sands had idolized, for Scarman's disappearance, Nelson's death, and in 1926, Sands' own disappearance, had been uncannily unfortunate.


	6. The First Allied League - 1914

When the First World War broke out in 1914, and the Allied and Central Powers fought over Europe, those belligerent nations with Leagues (Britain, France, Germany, and by 1917, the United States) saw fit to deploy their talented individuals who made up these teams separately, and employ them in different areas of the military needing of their skilled support (a good example of how this was done can be found in the entry for the Second American League). Although the main national Leagues had been temporarily disbanded, the Allied Nations decided (on the suggestion of the ageing spymaster Mycroft Holmes) to create a new League for morale and propaganda purposes (Which is why the members of this League were mostly more conservative choices than most other Leagues usually contain), made up of fighting men and women from around their allied states.

The League that was put together by February 1915 was inhabited by:

- John Clayton, the Viscount of Greystoke was a complicated man, having grown up a castaway from a shipwreck in the jungles of Africa, he was eventually returned home to England, where he couldn't become used to the artificiality of civilization, and returned with his wife to the wilderness, living as an adventurer free from the restrictions of society. The British occasionally employed Clayton as an agent, as his Mangani-learned abilities made him a formidable fighter and explorer. This was despite Clayton's contempt for civilized culture, as he often enjoyed these adventures he was granted, his service for The Allied League was very much like that.

- Sâr Dubnotal, a mesmerist with skills comparable to the German Dr. Caligari, Dubnotal posed as an Oriental magician, but was actually just a Frenchman well trained in Hindu arts and sciences. Dubnotal was arrogant, womanizing and hard drinking, but was given the illusion of respectability by the French propaganda specialists in order to ensure his position as the Gallic representative in the Allied League.

- Khlit Ubiytsa III, a Russian Cossack descended from his famed 17th century namesake: 'Khlit the Manslayer'. Khlit was a jovial but hardened rider and gunman, he may not have had the same esteem as his legendary ancestor, but his celebrated service during Russo-Turkish War, Boxer Rebellion and Russo-Japanese War distinguished Ubiytsa as a great soldier in his own right. The Cossack left the League in 1917 to help fight against the Bolshevik revolutionaries back in the Russia on a personal request from Tsar Nicholas II.

- Baron Cesare Stromboli, a Gentleman Thief styling himself after the great Arsène Lupin, Stromboli was Italy's addition to The Allied League, and perhaps this team's answer the German master criminal Dr. Werner Mabuse. Stromboli's cynicism prevented him from being as arrogant as many in his mold were, and it was this relative modesty that made him quiet popular with ordinary Italian soldiers, to whom he was offered as a propaganda role model.

- Capt. Shunro Sakuragi, a Japanese Naval tactitian who helmed the mighty '_Gotengo_' submersible mentioned earlier in The Dossier. Sakuragi was present in the Allied League despite the Japanese Empire's minimal role in the Allied war effort, and was mainly present to build stronger ties with the European powers, and earn more respect for Japan. In this respect Sakuragi was successful, and helped secure the many valuable post-war investments from Europe that helped define the Japanese Empire as a genuine superpower throughout the interwar era.

- And in 1917:

- Dr. Clark Savage Jr., a jack of all trades (but master of all) skilled in martial arts, medicine, engineering, languages and countless others. Savage Jr. had been raised by his father and a team of scientists to be the perfect human specimen, who could be superior to his contemporaries physically and mentally. Doctor Savage was added to the League as the American representative after the U.S. entry into the war. As a person, Savage could be stolid, remorseless after battle, and seemingly asexual, but at other points was capable of surprising kindness and generosity. He also happened associated with his own group during the war just as much as with the League.

The Allied League may have been set up mainly for propaganda purposes, helping to encourage allied unity, and went on tours and to publicity events noticeably more often than they went on missions, but when they did partake in exploits, they did so in a highly theatrical fashion. Such exploits include:

- Travelling up the Elbe to raid the Berlin Metropolis, which the League did multiple times using the _Gotengo_ (Although apparently rarely in a substantial way that would visibly stunt the German war effort).

- Managing to capture one of the German Airship pilot Luftkapitan Mors' 'Steerable Airships' from a hangar in Munich, and creating a propaganda film of themselves destroying the vehicle with high explosives. Later this infuriated French aeronaut Jean Robur, who claimed he could have made good use of his former ally's ship and it's mechanical parts.

- Using Dubnotal's hypnosis to cause the lead driver of an Austrian supply convoy to divert his truck line into an Allied base. These supplies were only moderately useful, but the humiliation on the behalf of the enemy was apparently victory enough.

- Using Stromboli's suaveness to allow him to bed numerous German, Bulgarian and Tomanian aristocrats. Causing more embarrassment for the Central Power's elite.

- Utilizing Clayton's strength, Savage Jr.'s engineering ability, and of course Sakuragi's _Gotengo_, the League destroyed a large Dam in Borduria, flooding a valley. Granted it wasn't directly important to the Central Power's war effort, but it guaranteed another stirring moral victory.

This League was disbanded at the conclusion of the war, and due to it's manufactured, and mostly uninteresting presence in the war, it was never fondly remembered (neither was the war itself however), including by its own members, who purportedly never got along terribly well to begin with. The League participants also widely felt their considerable skills weren't put to better use, considering the government's restraint in putting them into the field. The Allied officials were worried about the propaganda implications of the team members dying, as they were with most of the League's actions. This was very much The First Allied League's downfall.


	7. The League of Horrors - 1921

After the disaster that occurred at the Opéra-Garnier in 1913, the mysterious, and highly dangerous former French League member known only as 'Fantômas', had seemingly disappeared. Fantômas had joined the First French League in 1909 for monetary reasons, which came despite the vastness of his criminal empire. Although he had been though dead, French authorities had suspected his continuing existence after the check the phantasmal terrorist had been given by his League employers under one of his aliases, was cashed in at the Bank of France, and the almost one million francs Fantômas was entitled to were sent to an undisclosed location.

Fantômas then was not heard at all of during the events of The Great War, indeed one could guess he was waiting it out in some safe location.

The disappearance may have been a relief to the French authorities, but this rest period could never last, and, after the conclusion of the war, Fantômas returned, being sighted visiting numerous locations in France and abroad, rebuilding his empire.

Fantômas had learned a great deal about the structure of League type organisations during his service to the French, and as part of his new criminal syndicate, he devised his own, dubbed 'The League of Horrors' by the press after rumors of their existence began to circulate. These vile figures drafted by the nefarious Fantômas were:

- Erik Karim, the former 'Opera Ghost', who had haunted and held his reign of terror over the same building Fantômas had disappeared under, had faked his own death, and now held a grudge against humanity for the prejudice and repulsion they showed toward him. Karim joined The League of Horrors perhaps as a method in which to wreak havoc on French society, and utilized his skills as a magician and saboteur (seemingly so after his famous, but skillful vandalism of a certain chandelier) in order to aid his macabre allies.

- Dr. Christian Coriolis, the mad naturalist who modeled himself on the more well recognized Dr. Alphonse Moreau had notoriously trained a rare ape to murder for his own nefarious aims back in 1911, and was freed from prison by Fantômas for the purpose of serving to his bidding. Coriolis carried out schemes for his mad master that included training domesticated animals to turn on their owners, and many other such fouled plans. Coriolis was sadistic, unsanitary and repulsive, which along with his talents made him ideal for the League of Horrors.

- Le Masque Rouge (The Red Mask), the second master criminal the hold take the mantle of Red Mask, the first being an extortionist who terrorized the French detective Bamatabois Barthélémy in 1912. This incarnation of the hooded menace was a woman, Ludivine Thérnadier, a descendant of the notorious battlefield looter and crime boss Lukas Thérnadier, and a former member of the criminal syndicate 'Les Vampires'. As the Red Mask, Thérnadier had been working as a cat burglar, until her recruitment by Fantômas, from which point she specialized in spying on potential victims for her mad master.

- Dr. Cornelius Kramm, the diabolical surgeon, formerly leader of the 'Red Hand' Crime Empire, where he received his horrifying reputation as 'The Sculptor of the Human Flesh'. Kramm had also faked his death after the defeat of himself and his late brother Fritz in 1913, and since then had assumed numerous aliases using his convincing face masks, unnervingly made out of real human flesh from his unfortunate victims. Kramm was rumored to be a cannibal, suggesting his obsession with creating art out of human body parts may have been his ghastly attempt at decorative foodcraft.

This nightmarish quintet took advantage of the lack of League in France post-war (most of the members of the League Fantômas was part of had either died or left government service since Fantômas had disappeared), and committed a string of gradually more devious crimes over the course of the decade. Numerous, but solitary detectives, masked men and other heroes did battle with The Horrors, and occasionally foiled their lesser schemes, but none were enough to defeat the combined force of Fantômas and his legion.

Their direst of doings included:

- Using Kramm's disguises to infiltrate the Longchamp stables, and utilizing Coriolis' drugs to turn a group of champion horses into rampaging, carnivorous beasts that attacked their jockeys, before breaking loose and terrorizing the area. The horses were put down eventually, but Fantômas used the incident as leverage to demand ransom pay from numerous wealthy horse owners, whom he threatened to damage in the same way if not paid out. (1922)

- Blackmailing respected and charitable socialite Gilberte 'Gigi' Lachaille, by threatening her with secret, undesirable information acquired by Red Mask regarding an affair Lachaille had been in with a Tomanian Bachelor just before hostilities had broken out a decade earlier. Gigi was forced to pay out another grand sum of money for Fantômas and his Horrors. (1924)

- Stealing art and other luxury items from the homes of notable intellectual, mostly American expatriates living within the city of Paris during the so-called 'Jazz Era', drawn by the positive French exchange rates. These seemingly nationalistic burglaries included those carried out upon journalist Jake Barnes, his on and off lover Lady Brett Ashley, war veteran and literary critic Amory Blaine, and novelist Anthony Patch. (1926)

- Using Karim's expertise in illusionism and stagecraft, the Horrors tricked many of the European wealthy elite into vacating their homes, as their abodes appeared to be haunted. Instead it was merely the former ghost impersonator Erik, who faked the presence of paranormal activity in these mansions and chateaus so that he and his company could empty them of their valuables.

In 1927, Fantômas and his League of Horrors commenced their ultimate master plan for extortion on a global scale.

This horrid chapter began when the French Government were informed about the awful, universal deaths of the rural village of Longeverne's entire population, seemingly by a fast spreading disease.

After the town was quarantined, the President received a letter from The League of Horrors, claiming in their ultimatum that Doctors Kramm and Coriolis had successfully recreated the microbe strand that spawned the Black Death during the 14th century, and that the unassuming, Lorraignian village of 230 people was merely their trial run of the virus. Photographic evidence of Longeverne's corpses confirmed that the physical damage to the poor townsfolk's bodies supported the gang's claims.

The Horrors' message then became a chilling ransom note, threatening that they would use the black death on any point in Europe they felt obliged to, should the many ruling parties across the continent not do anything they asked for, of any nature, from that point forward ad nauseam, effectively giving the phantasmal network behind the scenes control of most of the western world.

Rather than give in to such a foul crime network, President Gaston Doumergue commissioned the only member of the First French League still in government employment,Léo Saint-Clair, aka Nyctalope, to form a new league to combat Fantômas' own. (This League will be described later on in the Dossier).

The Second French League tracked down their dreaded rivals a Gothic Castle within the Germanic nation of Meccania that had once been inhabited by Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The Holmesian detective and government agent René Chantecoq had deduced this Teutonic fortress to be the most likely place for Fantômas' hideout.

At this decaying structure, The French League encountered a series of traps and a cleverly devised maze, but after solving and avoiding said obstacles, encountered the Horrors.

Although Karim's pyrotechnics and illusions, Red Mask's athletic hand-to-hand combat, Coriolis' ravenous apes and Fantômas' brutality proved formidable, the committed French force stood their ground.

Fantômas halted the encounter with a truce, admitting that his Black Death threat had been a hoax, and that the Horrors had faked the outbreak using Dr. Kramm (who was strangely absent during the battle) and his skills with body manipulation to add boils and other plague symptoms to the villagers they had killed, having in actuality died from a gas attack mounted by Fantômas.

The crime lord then offered the Gallic menagerie a share in his now vast wealth, with the promise he would provide himself as a recurring enemy to them, while the League continued to serve the government, never defeating him but giving the impression they were serving the nation.

Surprisingly Sâr Dubnotal of all people seemed interested in Fantômas offer, frustrating his allies beyond reprieve, and they heckled the mesmerist as he approached his new crime master benefactor.

Dubnotal appeared to be about to shake on his deal, but then relievingly (for due to his volatility as a person, the French League had not always been able to trust the faux oriental, and would not have been overly shocked if he had betrayed them) stared Fantômas in his cold, sadistic eyes and hypnotized him.

The dazed Fantômas suddenly fired his automatic weapon furiously at his own associates, immediately exterminating Coriolis' rabid creatures, and injuring the man himself. Red Mask and Karim escaped the fire, but the spraying bullets peppered the complicated electrical system rigged around the walls of the castle, Dr. Frankenstein had implemented these during his 1818 experiments, and Fantômas and Karim had been repairing it so that Kramm would have the chance to recreate the tragic surgeon's necromantic work.

This network of wiring suddenly short-circuited, and as the still blinded Fantômas fell backward upon Frankenstein's old operating table; surplus electricity flowed though, instantly taking Fantômas' life.

Then the laboratory, and then the rest of the castle-based facility began to fall apart, and electrical malfunctioning caused generators to explode across the fortress. The two Leagues escaped the carnage, leaving the unfortunate Dr. Coriolis to his death, although through his strange masochism, he was heard laughing as the roof of the complex caved in on him.

After the collapse of the castle, the French League decided to allow the remaining members of the Horrors to escape and fight another day out of pure exhaustion, not knowing that Karim had been killed during the chaotic retreat, ironically by a falling chandelier, and Red Mask/Thérnadier would retire into obscurity soon after the climactic conclusion to The League of Horrors.

As for Dr. Kramm, it turned out after the wreckage of the Frankenstein castle was cleared, and the corpses recovered, that the figure in the fight thought to be Fantômas had actually been the cannibal sculptor in one of his constructed flesh masks, impersonating his dark master, while it appeared the man himself had fled and disappeared once more.

- (The further details of The Second French League will be discussed later on in the Dossier) -


	8. The Third American League - 1925

Now in his fifties, the Great War veteran and former military poster boy Captain Tom Sawyer had become quite a different man than the one he had been during his service with the Second American League. Sawyer's own personal guilt at his ruined friendships, manipulation of others and war crimes had caused him a bitter depression, and to turn to religion as a method of finding solace.

However when Sawyer was asked by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover on behalf of President Calvin Coolidge to help organize a new League, the former Marine captain saw an opportunity to use his leadership position as a way of writing his old wrongs, and finding personal redemption.

President Coolidge felt a new League was required to combat the high crime rates driven by the Prohibition, and the many cartels and gangsters thriving off the decadent 'Roaring Twenties'. Captain Sawyer saw this cause as morale good he could strive to enforce.

This League organized by Sawyer and Hoover was comprised of:

- Richard Seaton, an astrochemist and millionaire, known for his discovery of the strange compound known as 'Element X' (in actuality a variant of Cavorite), and large steel company investments through which he had made his fortune. Seaton piloted an advanced flyer known as _The Skylark_, which he powered using the 'X' compound. This high-speed air vehicle became this League's equivalent of the British League's _Nautilus_, providing them a meeting place and transportation.

- Dorothy Gale, a Kansas farm girl now in her twenties, who had for a long period of time lived in the extraterrestrial realm called 'Oz', a fantastical kingdom possibly on the plain of existence known as 'Arda'. Gale's inter-dimensional travel had made her aware of supernatural forces beyond the understanding of most other in Government employ, and gave her significance within the team. Gale's socialist leanings however (gained both from her working class background, and her years in the almost communist land of Oz) put her at odds with Hoover.

- Dr. Clark Savage Jr., the 'ideal specimen of human capabilities', as he was celebrated, was in his physical and intellectual prime during the interwar period. After Savage Jr's aforementioned service in the first world war, the doctor had successively captured and 'fixed' countless enemies of the law, and was possibly the most respected 'hero' of the many who operated in the U.S. at the time. As a League member, Savage Jr. acted as both the muscle, and the planner for his team, using his amiability and good humor as a way of holding together the group.

- Lamont Cranston, a master of disguise who by day posed as an idle playboy, but by night would adopt a cape and cowl and battle criminals as 'The Living Shadow'. A former fighter pilot, Cranston had developed a keen sense of stealth and speed, and could slip in and around actual shadows as if a ghost. Lamont could be occasionally prone to mood swings however, having almost developed two completely different personalities for himself, and his alter egos.

- Nicholas Carter, a celebrated private detective from New York City, Carter was in his sixties when recruited to the League, but much like Allan Quatermain before him, Carter's age did not prevent him from being a vital asset to the League. Detective Carter was notably a relative of both Civil War hero John Carter, and author Randolph Carter.

Captain Sawyer very quickly made firm friends with his new subordinates, attempting to not recreate the mistakes he made during his service with the previous League he had been part of. This effort made Sawyer an ideal team leader, and consequently helped shape an ideal team. This League held together well, and lasted for over two decades.

The many adventures of The Third American League include:

- Warring with the many crime syndicates and bootleggers active in America during the prohibition period and later interwar era. The gangs helped to their demise by the FBI agents included those led by Enrico 'Little Caesar' Bandello, Tom Powers, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, and Ronald 'Tuxedo' Johnson.

- Clashing with the more powerful 'supervillians' that mostly eclipsed the gangster types by the mid 1930s, these enemies included the vampiric 'Mad Monk' Niccolai Tepes, the mad scientist and 'Ultra Human' Professor Gerard Shugel, the psychopathic, telepathic occultist, Dr. Edgar Cizko, and the vicious gangster whose ambition set him above his peers, Alphonse Caprice.

- Exploring various locations that were of interest to the United States' government, including the ruins of the underground city named Murania, and numerous locales in which creatures previously believed extinct were found (Lake LaMetrie in Wyoming, The Roxton Plateau in Peru, and the islands of the Skull Archipelago such as Farou and Mondo).

- Helping the Allied War effort during World War II substantially, covertly fighting Axis forces in occupied territories such as France, Norway, Marshovia, Ruritania, and Syldavia. While battling against Fascist agents including The Nazi League, The First Japanese League, German Adventurer Jack Franklin, Femme Fatale Agent Axis, and Italian Secret Agent Dr. Riccardo de Medici.

The Third American League was enormously successful, and it's achievements were enough to allow a contented Tom Sawyer to die in peace in 1951, having felt that good had been done thanks to his team and his own efforts.

After the end of the Second World War, the newly elected Communist President Mike Thingmaker retired the ageing League. The members of the League then went their separate ways.

Dick Seaton chose to help advise the Post-War American space program, influencing fellow pioneers such as Commanders 'Buzz' Corry, Larry 'Cody' Martin, and Colonel Steve Zodiac.

Dorothy Gale became an advisor to Thingmaker, before being elected Minister for Unions. Unfortunately the FBI blacklisted her not long after the assassination of Thingmaker in 1953, as the anti-communist fervor took hold in Cold War era America. Gale then retired, and promptly disappeared, rumored to have returned to the Land of Oz.

Savage Jr. merely continued his adventuring, his physically refined body ageing slower than that of most normal humans.

Cranston retired to France, secretly hiring Psychologist Dr. Hugo Strange to help him deal with his strong bipolar that was linked with his excessive use of alter egos.

Carter went back to live in New York City briefly, before retiring to the Vermont town of Riverdale in 1947.

Overall it would appear that The Third American League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was possibly the most successful the U.S. Government had ever had at that stage. FBI Chief Herbert Hoover, Post-Thingmaker President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and many of their successors within their respective roles often used this League as their shining example for creating later Leagues.


	9. The Second French League - 1927

As mentioned in the entry regarding 'The League of Horrors', in 1927 French government agent Léo Saint-Clair, aka Nyctalope, formed a new League out of necessity in order to defeat Fantômas and his cohorts and prevent them from beginning a new Black Death epidemic. This League may have been formed abruptly, but it included many legendary Frank heroes who stayed in service for their nation for many years after their recruitment. The Second French League was populated by:

- Madam Blanc-Sec, a former author, but current adventurer, Blanc-Sec's exploits were often as incredible as they were bizarre, but the woman's tenacity and wit brought her through them with formidable ease. Blanc-Sec could easily have comparisons drawn between her and the British Wilhelmina Murray, as they were both strong, attractive, independent women who used intelligence and fearlessness to create personas that were more than equal to that of their more physical, and perhaps less resourceful male counterparts.

- Sâr Dubnotal, as mentioned twice already in this Dossier, Dubnotal was not terribly revered for his virtues as a team player, and his colleagues often worried that he would either betray them, or leave them for dead somehow. However it would appear Dubnotal may have been disagreeable as a person, but the mystic hypnotist was far too indolent to bother crossing his employers in any way.

- Doctor Omega, a mysterious, elderly inventor whose origins and other background elements are still unknown. Omega was the inventor of the advanced _Cosmos_ rocket ship, which he had used to travel beyond Earth's atmosphere several times. As an ally, Omega was distant, mischievous and often secretive, never quite letting on anymore than was relevant to a situation, despite his seemingly expansive knowledge of the world.

- Marcel Dunot, a sadistic, egotistical former boxer who had fought brutally in the First World War, causing many of the poor Teutonic soldiers who survived his pummelling to have to be institutionalised. Dunot still had the chivalry of a sportsman though, treating his friends and foes alike with respect and dignity, but perhaps not true friendships with anyone.

This League was characterised by the clashing egos of Dubnotal and Dunot, but also the offkilter friendship between Blanc-Sec and Saint-Clair, who perhaps were the only people there without volatile personalities, or in Omega's case, unusual reservedness.

After the League's encounter and victory of The League of Horrors in the May of 1927, Nyctalope chose to keep the League together rather than disband it, leading to a variety of further adventures that included:

- Covertly breaking up many of the Anti-Semitic and Fascistic political groups active within France during the Great Depression. Blanc-Sec's ingenuity and other incomparable abilities were made visible to her League allies for the first time here, heavily challenging their preconceived notions of women, and birthing in all of them (save for Dr. Omega, whose views were never clear) a respect for the adventuress that would develop strongly over time.

- Even more covertly assisting the Republican Forces in the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939), at one point encountering the notoriously cruel Nationalist Officer Valentin Vidal, who was a key agent of General Franco's. These missions were kept completely classified by the French Government for fear it would damage their international reputation should they be seen breaking their non-interference agreement over Spain. However the occupying German-Tomanian forces uncovered documents recording these exploits during the next decade.

- Attempting to use Dr. Omega's _Cosmos_ to land on the planetoid 'Mongo' when it's passage threatened the Earth in 1934, as the American _Skylark_ was under repairs at the time. Conveniently the heroic Gordon, Arden and Zarkov ended this perilous situation. The French League was still able to use the visit to collect a variety of radioactive substances that became useful during the Allied Manhattan Project in World War II though. Interestingly, it appears some strange yet remarkable piece of technology possessed by Omega granted both the Asiatic Mongo population and the human visitors the ability to understand each other's languages.

- In the lead up to World War II, assisting in providing security for important peace keeping events. These included the 1937 Metropolis Conference over the Axis alligned Freedonia's occupation of Balkan States Ruritania, Marshovia and Sylvania, and the 1938 Munich conference over the annexation of Czechoslovakia.

When War in Europe broke out in 1939, The League at first helped hold off the advancing Fascist forces as they swept through Western Europe. By 1940 however, when the German-Tomanian forces were on Paris' doorstep, The Franc ensemble, save for Saint-Claire, who was advising the French defence, were ordered by President Albert Lebrun to flee their base under the Paris Police Headquarters at Place Louis Lépine, and take shelter in a secret airbase at the Picardie commune of Nouvion near the English Channel (La Manche in French). The League arrived in this town not long after the French surrender to Germany, to find Doctor Omega (who had not aged a day since joining the League) already set up at the hidden airbase the _Cosmos_ set up for take off, with the Mongo derived Radium safe inside it. Dr. Omega claimed he had to leave his friends there, as he claimed mysteriously to have "Finished fulfilling [his] role bridging the gap in the time stream, and [could] not interfere any longer". The strange inventor claimed to have enough Cavorite left in his spaceship for a Channel-hop to the English coast, which would ensure the League's survival, and the safety of the spacecraft and radium, should they fall into Axis hands while still on the continent. Dr. Omega then farewelled the team, promising to "one day, come back", before literally disappearing before their very eyes in a tall, blue box of some kind beside a tree on the airfield, with a sign on it's exterior that read "Police Téléphone Public". He disappeared while mumbling incoherently about someone called 'Susan'.

After the old doctor had vanished, the team overheard a battalion of Tomanian infantry, backed by a Panzer Tank, advancing on their position. It was later uncovered that the Nazi forces learned of the airfield via a captured Nyctalope, whom German mesmerist Dr. Caligari had hypnotised into revealing secret information about the French resistance before placing him into an induced coma.

Dubnotal and Dunot insisted Blanc-Sec go on ahead and make the Channel crossing in the _Cosmos_ while they held off the Teutonic wave. Blanc-Sec seemed offended the Men would assume her weakness like that out of what appeared to be a blind masculine compulsion to fight rather than to flee. The Feminist Adventuress was then profoundly moved instead by the agreed claim from both her comrades that in actuality Blanc-Sec was the most competent and extraordinary member of Les Hommes Mysterioux, and would be of the most use to the Allied forces in Great Britain out of all of them. It was completely out of character for either of the two egotistical Frenchmen to say such a thing, let alone to agree with each other. But then as they both asked for a chance to passionately kiss Madam Blanc-Sec before they left, the emotionally distraught heroine was reassured that her two compatriots were still the same people.

Blanc-Sec boarded the _Cosmos_, and using her aviatrix skills, launched and piloted the spacecraft into the skies, as her poor friends Dunot the Boxer and Dubnotal the Magician valiantly fought off the infantry, led by SS General Van Klinkerkoffen, taking down an unbelievable number before going down under machine gun fire.

The _Cosmos_ made a beach landing late at night in the British seaside community of Warmington-on-Sea, where Blanc-Sec was found wandering around in the dark by a contingent of the local home guard, which brought her and the Radium to the British authorities.

In conclusion, Doctor Omega was never seen formally again, but an agent provocateur with a similar description was sighted in London numerous times during the next century, particularly in the 1960s.

Madam Blanc Sec assisted British Naval Intelligence during the War, and in peacetime returned to Paris and continued much the same as she had before 1927, but often visited the memorial to her fallen comrades in the Luxembourg Gardens.

Léo Saint-Clair aka Nyctalope was kept in hibernation for Intel purposes by the occupying Germans throughout the early part of the war, but was rescued in 1943 by French Resistance Agent and former League supporter René Chantecoq, and took him to Free French Leader Charles De Gaulle. Once Saint-Claire awoke from his coma, he went right back into action for the resistance. After the conclusion of the war, Nyctalope retired, and met annually with Blanc-Sec for meals until his death in 1969, when his Artificial Heart was donated to the Paris Natural History Museum.

This League was another highly successful foray into the format, despite its mostly tragic conclusion.


	10. The Kane League - 1938

Multi-millionaire media mogul, private landowner, and serial manipulator of politics Charles Foster Kane had experimented with having a 'League' of sorts in 1925, which according to record ended disastrously for the three poor 'Science Heroes' he had employed. In 1938, the more elderly Kane, who was suffering from failing health and what modern doctors would have diagnosed as the early stages of depression, along with a deteriorating business empire, decided to form a more formal League, this time modelled specifically on the 1898 Murray League, which the ageing tycoon viewed as the most successful incarnation of the team due to their incredible defeat of the first Martian Invasion. Kane hoped to use his recreation of that League to intervene world events as his publications had once been able to.

Kane sent his star reporter, the daredevil journalist Jane Arden, to assemble the private team. Arden procured the following personalities to join Kane's menagerie:

- Gene Autry, the strikingly handsome balladeer and latter-day gunslinger from Texas had been on a variety of notable adventures during the pre-war decade, most notably to the underground outpost of Murania. Autry had grown frustrated by the time he had been recruited as Kane's Allan Quatermain analogue, as his older brother, Orvon, had become vastly more famous through the countless songs, films and serials he starred in stolen from the life and works of his arguably more talented sibling. Autry agreed to join the League after Kane's offer of a film contract at Mammoth Studios, where the millionaire had a large share.

- Ann Darrow, the young actress who famously became a prisoner of the colossal simian cadaver who terrorized New York City in 1933. Darrow's survival physically, and maturation and courage gained from the incident mentally lent Darrow a Mina Murray quality which appealed to Kane. Much like Murray, the opinionated Darrow had recently divorced husband Jack Driscoll, whom she had been feeling socially restrained by. This more cynical, strong-willed version of Darrow than the one the Ape-monster had captured was certainly no longer a damsel in distress.

- Tom Powers, the former Chicago crime boss, and enemy of the Third American League, Powers had faked his death in 1931 while escaping from the so-called 'Burns Mob' and suffering from debilitating injuries. Powers had promised the family of a deceased friend of his to reform himself, and promptly took upon the identity of 'Thomas Masters', and relocating to New York City to become a Fireman. Arden tracked down Powers and offered him the 'Invisible Man' position in Kane's new League. Although initially reluctant, and confused why such a role would belong to himself, Powers accepted on the grounds Kane's influence would help cover up his criminal past for good. Kane then delivered to Powers a wearable device invented by Kane-sponsored Dr. Stanley Stanfield that would grant him invisibility, barring his shadow.

- Armand Robur, the French Aeronaut, son of the legendary 'Conqueror of the Skies' Jean Robur, notably married Nemo family heiress Hira Dakkar the same year as he served in this League. Robur served fittingly as the Captain Nemo surrogate in Kane's League, with his colossal airship _The Terror_ serving as an equivalent to _The Nautilus_. As compensation for his service, Kane promised Robur to stir anti-fascist sentiment within his newspapers to subtly convince the American people to come to the aid of the French should war break out in Europe.

- William 'Bill' Dunn, in 1933 this Depression-stricken vagrant briefly became an enormously powerful telepath after participating in the experiments of another Kane-funded scientist, Professor Ernest Smalley. During this period Dunn became mad with power, christening himself 'Superman' and attempting to conquer the Earth. These powers wore off, after a time however, leaving Dunn as he was beforehand, his mind sane again. This changed in 1935, when the drifter found himself afflicted with a duel personality much like Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde in the 19th century, with his powers returning for a megalomaniacal and darker alternate personality which surfaced in Dunn's stress. Kane found the obvious place for Dunn as his Jekyll/Hyde allegory, but not under his old 'Superman' title, as earlier in 1938, another quite recognisable individual had taken that moniker.

After Kane and Arden had compiled this League, the decrepit tycoon had the group gather at his vast, but incomplete Florida estate of Xanadu, where he gave them instructions toward what would be their first, and consequently only assignment.

After the 'Skull Island' incident Ms. Darrow had been involved with, Kane had become heavily interested in the idea of capturing similar primordial beasts as the brutish creature, which had kidnapped the former Mrs. Driscoll five years earlier. In order to accomplish the procuring of a similar animal as the 'Kong' creature, the Media Mogul instructed Robur to transport the League via _The Terror_ to the Indian Ocean situated British colony of St. Georges Island, where Armand would leave the craft with his subordinates for the safety of the air vessel. At this point, the team would take the steam ship _Venture II_ to the Skull Archipelago (the actual Skull Island had been submerged after a large volcanic eruption in 1934), and make landfall at Farou Island. On Farou the League would search to see whether this island contained creatures similar to it's sunken sibling [Note: Kane was unaware of The Third American League's prior expedition to the island at this point].

Despite some reservations on the behalf of Powers and Robur over the necessity of such an expedition, and trepidation from Darrow, who was naturally reluctant to return to such a location, the expedition went ahead, arriving the League at Farou Island in the August of 1938. The League disembarked from _Venture II_ onto the Sinbad-chronicled isle on via raft to an unoccupied beach, before making their way inland through the dense jungle.

After setting up camp for the night, Dunn began to feel the brain activity of a large number of people originating from somewhere within the island, so the team Powers search ahead with his invisibility for any signs of habitation.

While Powers was gone, Darrow pointed out what appeared to be miscellaneous animal noises in the distance, but she interpreted specifically as the noises of an Ape like creature similar to the one she had encountered five years earlier. The proactive Robur deuced that if the sounds of such a creature as Ann had mentioned could travel over the distance the League could hear it over, it must be at least the size of the beast which had kidnapped the actress, and planned to go out after the sound of the bestial moaning as soon as their Invisible Man returned.

As it occurred however, the sounds became louder and more disturbing, as this creature began to appear in some sort of pain. This prompted the ever-ethical Autry to volunteer to track down and put down the creature, should it be in grievously wounded. Robur was concerned that Autry's absence would limit the group's numbers to greatly, as Powers had still not returned from his scouting mission, but the balladeer convinced the aeronaut that he would search for their missing comrade while out, and left promptly with his hunting rifle.

Robur, Darrow and Dunn remained at the camp in wait of their two allies, the latter two enjoying each other's stories of a similar experience in Depression-era struggles.

At about midnight, a brilliant red flare was let out over the tropical forest. Robur identified this as one belonging to Autry's emergency flare-gun, and immediately ordered Dunn to follow him as he traced the signal. Darrow demanded she go as well, accusing the aeronaut of sexism, but Robur left her to guard the camp as he and the schizophrenic 'Superman' ran on ahead.

Robur and Dunn found Autry in a far-off clearing, where the gunslinger had been detained in a matinee-esque wooden cage. The Midwestern hero had been captured by a joint team of German and Italian military, identifiable by their uniforms. The fascists had locked down their area and set themselves up in a small camp, set around another prisoner of theirs, held in an even larger wooden cage. This second captive was the enormous ape-creature, which had been letting out the colossal moans, and was currently being hooked up to a number of chords and wires, pumping strange fluids and electrical energy into the drugged beast's body.

The sky captain and the telepath were immediately surrounded and captured by the grey-uniformed; MP40 carrying soldiers, and took the logical decision of surrendering to them.

Dunn was convinced that these troops had been the source of the mental activity he had detected, and was able to read lightly into their minds to uncover that his captors had arrived here via U-Boat from the Italian territory of Wadiya in East Africa.

The two German leaders, the future Nazi-League member Dr. Wichserkopf Merkwürdigliebe, and Tank Commander Hugo von der Drache, interrogated Robur and Dunn, before explaining to them their plan for the Ape. According to the two loyal fascists, the Axis had planned to create an army of Dinosaurs and the other extinct creatures that inhabited the Skull Archipelago, but to quadruple their power before hand. This particular poor simian that had been captured by the European madmen was being injected with both a super serum that would greatly increase his size, and a metagene that would allow the animal to channel unnatural amounts of electricity through his body, shocking his enemies to death.

Robur assured his wardens that their plan was insane, but his words only ended himself and his compatriot Dunn before a makeshift firing squad, to ensure to two Kane employees wouldn't give away the insidious plan to the Americans or the French.

Conveniently, the near fatalities of Robur and Dunn were averted when the central tent of the German-Italian encampment was exploded by a bazooka, throwing a group of soldiers across the campsite, and sending the rest of the soldiers into frenzy.

The two Kane-ites made a break for it, Robur reclaiming his weapons and gunning down the Nazis who attempted to block his escape. Dunn assisted his comrade by freeing Autry, and using his telepathy to throw the enemy gunmen off target, hitting each other instead.

The mysterious, projectile firing saviour of the two heroes emerged from the jungle, revealing herself as Darrow, using Robur's handheld artillery from their own camp.

At the same time, a tribe of natives from elsewhere on the island besieged the fascist camp, led by Powers, who had been impersonating their 'Shadow God' with his partial invisibility, and had collected their aid as such.

This nearly assured victory for the Kane League was rudely interrupted when a pack of Velociraptors, drawn by the commotion, ambushed the two sides, tearing poor Darrow, Dunn, and many of the natives, limb from limb.

The disgusted and disturbed survivors; Robur, Autry and Powers, had no time to waste despite their horror, and made a break for the shore, where they intended to signal the _Venture II_. However, the three men could not outrun the sheer speed of the Raptors, and the Invisible Powers abruptly decided to draw the monsters away from his friends. The former criminal may have been invisible to the dinosaurs, but his scent was enough to attract them. As Powers drew the Raptors off into the deep jungle, the terrified Robur and Autry heard their friend's screams echo across the island.

When the surviving teammates reached the beach, they waited impatiently as the _Venture II_ sent out its sailors to rescue them. The raft finally arrived, but the Raptors arrived at the same time, rushing towards the Men, prepared for the kill. Just as suddenly, the Ape creature from the campsite burst through the trees onto the sand, having spontaneously grown since escaping his capture during the earlier chaos. The Gorilla monster tussled with the Dinosaurs, electrocuting one, which frightened the rest of the pack enough to force them into tactical retreat.

In this time, Robur and Autry had gotten aboard the raft and been rowed halfway to the steamship, but as the disturbed adventurers were escorted to safety, they made eye contact with the Ape creature still on shore, which gazed back at them bitterly, while the beast's body continued to leak of the Nazi derived fluids.

When the thoroughly scarred heroes arrived back at Xanadu in Florida, they learnt that the two Axis leaders from the island had been captured by the natives, cutting off one of Dr. Merkwürdigliebe's hands as a show of superiority, before the Wadiyan Navy rescued the two.

Kane was unimpressed by the failure of the mission, and dismissed the two Men, with Kane cancelling his promise of to Autry of a film contract. Naturally both Robur and Autry were furious, and left Xanadu absolutely embittered. Robur went on to distract himself from the his trauma by happily marrying Hira Nemo, and Autry became an explorer, venturing to the North Pole, where he found solace and refuge in the kingdom of Queen Olympia, chronicling the life of the so called 'Shaman of the North' in a number of festive songs which he sold to Orvon for a sum that allowed him to retire.

This League may have been an unmitigated disaster, but it may have actually helped the Allied cause in World War II in the long run, as they prevented the Axis Powers from developing their primeval army they had hoped for.

Charles Foster Kane died a lonely man in 1941, causing a media frenzy after the ambiguous uttering of his last word.


	11. The First Japanese League - 1941

By the time of their entry into World War II in 1941, The Empire of Japan had very much become the European style Imperial Power that The Devil Doctor had foreseen the rise of. Imperial Japan not only had vast amounts of occupied territory in Asia, but also a heavily industrialized military just as capable for war as any Colonial Power at the time.

As part of this German-Tomanian backed push for war in the Pacific, the Japanese Diet under Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō commissioned another European style military innovation: A League of 'Extraordinary Gentlemen'.

Newly ordained Secret Service agent, Taku 'Tiger' Tanaka, was employed to collate this Nipponese cell, and under his recommendations, the following figures were recruited:

- '_The Golden Bat_', A Robed, Skeletal Adventurer, and perhaps the first 'Superhero' known to human history. This ancient, god-like being fought evils in the Thurian age civilisation of Atlantis, during the same era as heroes such as Kull The Atlantean. After spending thousands of years in suspended animation, First Archaeologist League member Professor Takeo Yamatone awaked _Golden Bat_ from an Egyptian Sarcophagus, and henceforth, the Atlantean resumed his fight against evil in 1930s Japan. As a League member and unofficial Leader, _Golden Bat_ was loyal, but exceedingly, even high-handedly ethical, often clashing with the Imperial high command over what he saw as their 'failures to deliver good'.

- Capt. Riku Sakuragi, grandson of the original Captain of the _Gotengo_, Shunro Sakuragi, and son of Isoroku Sakuragi, the then commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy, this Sakuragi had inherited control of one of the most advanced Naval weapons in the world, and used it prolifically throughout the war. Sakuragi and his _Gotengo_ were a force to be reckoned with, sinking countless Allied vessels and supporting many successful aquatic invasions during their service for the Imperial Navy. However _Gotengo_ was only the second greatest submarine in the world at this time, Janni Nemo's _Nautilus_ was still the number one, and this proved a difficulty Sakuragi would soon have to climactically face.

- Daisuke Mifune, an erstwhile Wrestler who had moved on to automotive design, using his comfortable fortune to establish the 'Mifune Motors' company, and his engineering genius to develop numerous advanced and uniquely equipped sports vehicles to be sold though said business. During the war, Mifune lent his industrial design skills to the Japanese Land Army, creating sleeker, faster tanks and mobile artillery for Imperial use, greatly impressing Prime Minister Tōjō. When the Diet was establishing the League, the affable Mifune was selected based on both his talents in vehicle design, and his great physical strength, left over from his wrestling days.

- Dr. Umatarō Temna, a talented roboticist and former student of Dr. Carl Rotwang, having studied under the German visionary at the Humboldt University of Berlin during the 1920s. Dr. Temna was finding great success automating private factories in Japan when his father Nagamiya, the Defense Minister of Japan at the time, recommended him for the League. For this new role, Dr. Temna created numerous pieces of advanced equipment to assist Japanese troops, such as rocket-propelled boots and posterior Arisakas, designed for Soldier, and prototype Android application.

- Dr. Kaneuchi Kaneda, a colleague of Dr. Temna's, and also skilled in robotics. Dr. Kaneda's focus however was less on the humanlike androids his Rotwang-influenced partner found preoccupying, but rather on larger scale automatons, similar to the sorts that became classified colloquially as 'Mechs' during the latter part of the century and onward. Dr. Kaneda's creations were highly weaponised, and efficaciously durable, but as his association with Dr. Temna continued, Dr. Kaneda slowly began to share his colleague's hope for the creation of manlike, artificial intelligence.

This League acted less in the field than their various predecessors, choosing mainly to cooperate at the home front in Tokyo, working on military-engineering projects combining the different members talents, designed to put Japanese technology on an undefeatable pedestal that would win them the war. During this period, The League worked with many other noted Japanese scientists to accomplish their goals, including Dr. Kaneda's protégé Professor Kazuo Shikishima, injured field soldier-come-chemist Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, and Science practitioner Capt. Toshio Murumatsu.

Eventually however, as the tide of war turned in the Allied favour, and the American 'Superheroes' got the better of the advanced German and Japanese technology, The Japanese League were forced take on missions more characteristic of regular Leagues, rather than simply continue their propaganda effectuating scientific work.

These additions to the Japanese war effort undertaken by The First Japanese League included:

- Battling resistance in Japanese occupied China; especially those forces led by Nanjing decade-era gangster boss Lao Che. The League even duelled with rebels backed by the astonishingly still-active Devil Doctor (who had declared personal war against Imperial Japan after their siding with the European Axis Powers), with Tanaka, _Golden Bat_ and the _Gotengo _proving worthy physical opponents for the septuagenarian crime lord's arsenal. (1943 – 1944)

- Assisting aquatic troop landings with Capt. Sakuragi's _Gotengo_, such as during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Mifune, Dr. Temna and Dr. Kaneda supplying their technological aid to the struggling Japanese troops. (1944 -1945)

- Tussling with the Third American, Allied and 'All-American' Leagues, as well as with the Justice Society. These organisations may have been made up of substantially powerful individuals, but in this instant, the combination of _Golden Bat's_ abilities, Tanaka's tactics, and the other League member's technical equipment, made The First Japanese League the equals of the legendary figures employed by the United Nations. (1944 – 1945)

- Fulfilling _Golden Bat's_ strong ethical obligations by rescuing many pacific islanders caught between Japanese and American crossfire. (1943 – 1945)

The First Japanese League fought valiantly until the very last days of the war, but began to fall apart when Capt. Sakuragi and the _Gotengo_ finally engaged, after decades of curiosity over how such a battle would play out, with Janni Nemo's _Nautilus_. This underwater confrontation occurred beneath the Sea of Japan on August 3 1945, with Nemo having tracked down Sakuragi based on hints the Naval hero had intentionally left, hoping for a dramatic victory and moral blow against the Allied forces, prior to what he and most others believed would be a conventional invasion of Japan. The other League members chose to survey the battle from the vantage point of the Battleship Tajōmaru.

Both the _Gotengo_ and _Nautilus_ were similar in that they were nineteenth century vessels that had improvements and renovations taken upon them throughout their existence, leaving them both state of the art, but also reasonably old.

When the two crafts began their feud however, the two submersibles, which previously appeared matched, suddenly changed that assumption. Nemo's vehicle proved fairly swiftly that it was more powerful, blasting Capt. Sakuragi's champion heirloom with Martian derived heat rays incorporated from Armand Robur's _The_ _Terror_. These weapons proved devastating to the _Gotengo_, and Sakuragi's vessel began to leak profusely. As Japan's combatant fought back with guided missiles developed by the three League engineers, Nemo directed evasive manoeuvres, and soon had her submarine lined up right beside _Gotengo_, as the following battle assumed the appearance of two colonial era Galleons firing their cannons at a fingernail distance. Out of this close-quarters fire-fight, the _Nautlius_ sustained generous damage, but the _Gotengo_ was finished, taking Sakuragi and his crew to the bottom of the shallow, coastal sea.

After the Nautilus casually left the battlefield, the surviving League was in shock, and Riku's family (his father having been killed in the air back in April 1943) in mourning.

The depression of the end of the Sakuragi line was only short lived though, as another greater tragedy, that of the twin Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki days later, enveloped the entire Japanese Empire, or what was left of it, and the world, in profound horror. These nuclear detonations sent shockwaves through the natural world, leading to substantially increased amounts of radiation on Earth, and influencing the evolution of the many mutated humans and creatures that became so visible in the coming decades.

These enormously unethical attacks, which slaughtered thousands of innocent civilians enraged _Golden Bat_, and the vengeful Atlantean superman disobeyed the Imperial surrender, ferociously taking his last stand against the US Fleet in Tokyo Harbour, killing many sailors, but ending with the embittered hero's own death, as he was blown apart by anti aircraft guns.

After the national surrender, the three surviving League mostly personnel went back to their respective careers in post-war Japan, having been cleared of any possible war crime charges due to their ethical stance during the war in the pacific.

Tanaka went on to become the chief of the Japanese Secret Service, serving in that office for four decades before his retirement.

Dr. Temna soon became the Science Minister of Japan, following in his father's political footsteps of holding a high office in his field of interest. Dr. Tenma perhaps became most famous post-war however after his creation of _Tetsuwan Atom_, the 'boy robot'.

Mifune chose to become influential in the world of automotive racing, with both his sons becoming well-regarded drivers in his 'Mach' automobiles.

Unfortunately the kindly Kaneda passed away due to heart failure shortly after the war closed, and his final project, a large, possibly sentient robot as the creator had wished to someday build, to his young son Shotaro.

The wreckage of the _Gotengo_ was notably salvaged by US Patrol boat _PT-73_, and used in the creation of the prolific vessel known as the _Stingray_, piloted by former submarine commander Troy Tempest during the 1960s. The sunken submersible was eventually rebuilt in Japan in 1963, where it was classed as the _Atragon_ by the United States to avoid confusion with the earlier model.


	12. The Second Allied League - 1942

As the Second 'Great' War commenced, the Allied forces, led mainly in the early stages by the United Kingdom, but then restructured significantly after the later addition of the United States and Soviet Union to the cause, again organised a 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' to assist in their efforts. More than anything, as it was in World War I, the presence of such a League was primarily to set examples of unity, courage and values through highly publicised, and thinly-veiled, propaganda heroes.

This group was in the works for most of the early part of the war, with leaders Winston Churchill, Albert Lebrun (although due to France's surrender to the Teutonic fascists, not for terribly long), and the prime ministers of England's commonwealth territories playing key roles in the organisation. But once the USSR joined the war under Joseph Stalin in 1941, and the USA under Franklin D. Roosevelt later that year, the increased political pressure fast-tracked the implementation of the League design.

As unveiled in February 1942, with its members enlisted and sent over the nations they respectively represented, The Second Allied League comprised:

- Matthew 'Mat' Selwood, an engineer and radio store owner who had been active as armoured vigilante _'The Flaming Avenger' _since 1933, defending interwar era Dundee, Scotland, and eventually most of the northern United Kingdom, from crime and espionage. Selwood was offered the British position in The Second Allied League based on his aptitude in operating the flame-throwing bastion he used as a costume._ 'The Flaming Avenger'_ armour was given a British Patriot redesign, red, white and blue being added to the armour, and motifs involving the Union Jack, Royal Crown and other items of traditional English iconography. These stylistic additions reflected Selwood's personality, which was reportedly that of a staunch, working class, British nationalist.

- Britt Reid, the handsome grandnephew of Second American League affiliate John Reid, and editor of the American (and globally syndicated) _Daily Sentinel_ newspaper, which impressed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill shortly prior to the war after controversially printing anti-Hynkel material in a series of exposés. These articles evidently caused controversy amongst American isolationists, but made Reid a hero to the British, and later a key propaganda tool for the Allies after American entry. Reid was also, by night, the vigilante crime-fighter _'The Hornet'_, and used this persona when joining the League. As a costumed hero, Reid and his assistant, the Japanese-Filipino defector 'Keito', used their honed skills in martial arts to dispense allied justice to their Axis opponents much as they had done to racketeers in peacetime America. As an editor in his public persona however, Reid continued to use his influence to spread pro-war sentiment to his worldwide readership.

- Lt. Col. Rosa Klebb, a cunning Russian agent working for the newly founded Soviet _SMERSH_ organisation, and proficient in her use of covert gadgets, along with other 'cloak and dagger' tactics. Klebb was ruthless in her practice, creating for herself a feared reputation amongst the German-Tomanian ranks, and guaranteeing her a place in their anti-Allied propaganda, which christened her the 'Rote Dämon' (meaning Red Demon). Klebb's sadistic streak set her apart from her idealistically capitalist teammates, perhaps out of knowledge that Lt. Col. Klebb, and other such Russian operatives, would most likely become their enemies should the war with the Axis Powers be won.

- Alana North, the Canadian Inuit mystic whose spiritual link with the Arctic spirits, worshipped by the northern tribal peoples from which she descended, gave her incredible powers and abilities, justifying her to be classified as a 'Super-heroine'. The socially progressive Ms. North used her position in the League to not only represent her Commonwealth nation, but also to champion the rights of repressed minorities such as Native Americans, being one herself after all, on the world stage. As a League member though, North acted almost as Lt. Col. Klebb's polar opposite, with her innate kindness and sensitivity lending her an unusual leniency to all people she encountered, ally or enemy, and a philosophy of forgiveness and understanding. Such an attitude was not often present, nor encouraged, within the Allied and Axis ranks at the time, so North was often told to keep her views out of public visibility, as having a Mahatmas Gandhi type figure in a military operation was foreseen as being poor for moral.

- Nestor Burma, an agent and saboteur for the Free France Forces in Occupied France, and deployed to the League by their leader Charles De Gaulle. The rugged Burma had formerly been active as an anarchist in the pre-war years, but gained the respect, and later employment of (once he became milder in his views) the French Government, after successfully infiltrating and destroying a pro-fascist group active in Paris in 1936. Burma served as private detective in Paris after this point, often being hired by the Government to perform covert operations within the city. When war came, the now heavily socialist Burma joined with the partisans under De Gaulle before his entry into The Second Allied League. In the League he served as a tactician, crack-shot, and generally a grizzled, world-weary character, but with a friendly, if cynical, sense of humour that allowed him to bond with his British, American, Russian and Canadian compatriots.

Naturally as such a high profile team, The Second Allied League became the centre of a vast range of propaganda posters, newsreels and even memorabilia, as they became utilised for moral purposes by the administration of the Allied forces. This League was one of many that operated on the Allied side during the war years, as they fought alongside the The Third American League, First All-American League, Justice Society of America, The Invaders and a handful of significant others.

As their own respective team however, The Second Allied League still managed to accomplish a series of impressive missions, despite their intended purpose as merely propaganda figures. Such adventures partaken by this team were not limited to:

- Having various run-ins with the similarly purposed Axis Leagues: '_Die Helden von Deutschland und Tomania' _(The Nazi League, or directly: 'The Heroes of Germany and Tomania'), and the '_Nihon rîgu'_ (The First Japanese League). These encounters often involved impressive, high-stake action, but also quite often collateral damage to civilian areas that was usually covered up by both sides of the conflict at the time. These Allied cover-ups irritated North intensely, but her good friend Diana Prince, an affiliate of the Justice Society, convinced her that such 'accidents' were all for the "greater good", and that if the public found out about such events, it would cause all forms of disruptive anti-war protests that would make defeating the "forces of evil" more difficult. (1942 – 1945)

- Assassinating high-ranking Axis officials such as the Germany/Tomania-allied Freedonia's General Roberto Roland, and their puppet Governor of occupied Sylvania, Chicolini Chieti. The League also kidnapped such fascist dignitaries as one of Germany-Tomania's own puppet governors (in this case of the occupied Channel Islands) Roderick Spodes, the former head of the British _Black Shorts _fascist party who had escaped imprisonment in the UK at the beginning of the war. (1942 – 1944)

- Sabotaging and destroying key Axis infrastructure across Occupied Europe. Such buildings and structures destroyed included Castle Dracula in Transylvania, as being situated in Nazi aligned Romania; the ancient palace became the sight of a large-scale attempt to recruit supernatural forces to the fascist cause. The incident of the late vampire lord's fortress' destruction provided another battleground between The Second Allied League and The Nazi League. Another pivotal edifice of Hynkel's power undermined by the Allied League was the similarly archaic Ice Palace of the Snow Queen in the permafrost-blighted region of Northern Finland. As the Finnish were aligned with the Nazi forces, this recently repaired relic of a perhaps more mystical past was converted into war use against the Soviet Union. However the Allied League ended this fascist cooperation by using Nelvana's affinity with the spirits of the North, who brought about a terrifying cold storm to the frozen palace, wiping out it's militant occupants and leaving it unsuitable for any others to return safely. (1942 – 1944)

- Assisting partisans in the many resistance movements across the Axis occupied territories. The Allied League gave aid to the underground groups in France, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Sylvania, China, Ruritania, Zurowska, Marshovia, Czechoslovakia, Greece and a handful of others. In seemingly most cases, the League's help was greatly appreciated by these rebels, and obtained valuable leverage for the Allies once the original governments were restored to these nations.

By the end of the Second World War, The Second Allied League had been greatly lauded for their valiant efforts against the uniform forces of fascism under Hynkel, Napoloni, Hailstone, Tōjō and the other Axis Leaders. However, while the War in Europe drew to it's close, the Allied Forces spilled into the war-ravaged centre of Tomania, Hynkel and his closest cohorts spent their last days in their bunker, and the Soviet and American troop lines grew perhaps tensely close, the Allied League encountered perhaps their most dramatic, and perhaps terrifying scenario.

Both US and Soviet forces, their battlelines close at that stage, had noticed what appeared rockets being launched from a valley in central Tomania late at night, and reported this to the Allied commanders. The League was dispatched to follow these strange occurrences to their source, but the lauded quintet had difficulty tracing them. After a week of fruitless searching, North became aware of a strange, artificial aura radiating off the landscape within the valley floor, the Inuit mystic having an acute sense connected to natural balance. This prompted the ever-methodical Lt. Col. Klebb to search the landscape with a powerful metal detector, only to find the machine reading to its maximum capability. Burma pointed out that the most obvious connotation of these signs were that a bunker of some sort must be underground, but before the League could search for this, they were surrounded by Nazi Storm troopers in armour similar to that of Selwood's, and forced to drop their weapons and accept temporary surrender.

The 'supermen' marched their allied prisoners down into a colossal underground facility accessed through either a grand iris structure, which would open at the base's roof, or a smaller, hidden elevator, which they used in this instance to transport the League underground. This gargantuan complex was home to a concealed spaceport, where remnants of Hynkel's failed, science-fiction-esque Reich, in the form of people, technology and artifacts, were being loaded into Spacecraft of missile-like designs.

The League were taken to the two remaining Nazi League conspirators, Captain Albert Krieger, the Aryan 'super soldier' and die-hard servant of the 'fatherland', and Dr. Wichserkopf Merkwürdigliebe, an opportunist who appeared embarrassed to still serve such an abortion of a regime. Capt. Krieger explained to the captured League that he was sending off the survivors of the old regime to different parts of the world, and even beyond, in order to continue the thousand-year Reich until the double-cross could rise again. Such apparent refugees Capt. Krieger mentioned he had dispatched included the war criminal scientists Christian Szell (an ex-Nazi League cohort) and Josef Mengele to South America, and even number of unidentified fascists to the Moon in order to establish a colony there. After explaining his plan in a manner so long and over-pretentiously that it surely led to his own downfall, Capt. Krieger revealed he had created technology based around that used by the Allied heroes such as Selwood, but also of notables including Cliff Secord and Bruce Wayne, and planned to kill his current hostages with said equipment as a final message to the Allies of the undefeatable strength of the Third Reich. As the Super-soldier began to do set his troops onto the league though, the quick-reflexed Keito confused the soldiers with a series of fast, successive blows to their respective bodily pressure points, setting the fascists off-target as they began their execution. This chaos allowed the League to spring into action, as Reid joined his Filipino partner in using martial arts against the mechanized enemies, Selwood his flamethrower to roast the Tomanian supply caches, Burma and Klebb gadgets and brute force against the regular soldiers, and North her elemental powers to demolish sections of the Rotwang-influenced base. After a high impact battle, the League came out victorious, possibly due to their trust in each others abilities, which the war-weary and near to disillusioned Nazi forces lacked. Capt. Krieger fought till the end, until North fooled the Aryan patriot into flying over the nose of a primed rocket, which the quick-thinking Burma took as a subtle instruction, activating the space-vessel to launch into Krieger, crushing the Tomanian's flight-gas filled body against the roof of the facility before the rocket exploded, killing the 'superman' with his own technology.

After this feud was over, the League could barely catch a breath before a battalion of American troops stormed the underground stronghold. Sgt. Franklin John Rock led the US force into the chamber, where he quickly rounded up the surviving Nazi scientists such as the seemingly indifferent Dr. Merkwürdigliebe, and had them sent out, where apparently they would be taken by truck to the American base of operations in liberated Paris. Lt. Col. Klebb was offended by this action, not that the Americans would spare war criminals of trails and punishment based merely on the ex-Nazis utility, but that they did not leave any for the Soviets, who had helped the Americans considerably by that point in winning the war. This caused Klebb to walk out from the group and return to Moscow via the Soviet forces only half a mile from the ex-stronghold's location.

After getting over the disappointment that Klebb, who had come very close to letting her hardened exterior and allowed herself to become a friend of her colleagues, had shown no remorse in leaving them, the League rested at the American camp, before joining the collective Allied forces for the final push into the Tomanian capital of Tramplin, where Hynkel's dead body was found inside his bunker.

After the end of the war in Europe, the Allied League joined with the Justice Society, The Invaders and etcetera to march in the New York Victory parade, in their own 'Costumed Section', before being disbanded at the August 1945 Potsdam Conference in Germany by US President Mike Thingmaker, UK (then) Prime Minister Harold Wharton, and USSR Leader Joseph Stalin.

After this point, the closely nit League members said their farewells before departing toward their separate ways.

Lt. Col. Klebb became one of the most important agents of SMERSH during the Cold War before her death in the field during the British 'From Russia With Love' Operation in 1957.

Matthew Selwood became an important figure in the highly militarised United Kingdom of INGSOC and Big Brother, as his socialist views fit in well with that of the party's. Selwood helped battle 'Oceania's' enemies such as Manor Farm Chairman 'Napoleon', and the reclusive former Nazi-ally Meccania under Bludiron III. Selwood served INGSOC until 1953, when as the party was defeated, Selwood himself went into retirement, unsure how the new, anti-socialist conservative government of Britain would take to him.

Britt Reid and Keito went on battling crime in Post-War America much as they had in the pre-war United States. Although in this new USA, the seminal duo found themselves against numerous new enemies of Communist (Post-Thingmaker), Mutant and Extra-terrestrial origin. Reid's _Daily Sentinel_ printing strong anti-communist material during this time.

Nestor Burma retuned to Paris as a Private Detective, becoming the City of Light's equivalent of figures like Los Angeles' Philip Marlowe, eventually joining the Third French League in 1966.

Alana North returned to the Northern reaches of Canada, where she rested after a long war in the simplistic, but peaceful lives of the Inuit, before becoming recruited again for another League, the Canadian League, in 1948.

As for characters like Dr. Merkwürdigliebe and the Nazis deployed to the Moon. The former of which changed his name and worked heavily on the US Nuclear and Space programs during the Cold War, nearly causing the end of the world during the 'Doomsday Machine' incident of 1964. The latter of these had a troubled existence as a Moon colony, as after warring with a subspecies of the Lunar Amazonians called 'The Cat-Women' in 1946, the Fatherland refugees were discovered by the youths known as the 'Young Rocket Engineers' during their voyages on the Rocket 'Galileo', who then informed the United Nations on Earth, which prompted the colony's destruction by the UN Space fleet.

Overall the Second Allied League was substantially more useful to the Allied cause than their predecessors in a field work sense, and became widely celebrated through post-war history for their efforts, both in written recordings of the period, but also in popular entertainment like Film, such as the 1968 film 'The League of Heroes' Starring Jonathan Lord as Reid and Anne Baxter as North, and even Song, such as in Johnny Fontane's hit 1960 ballad: 'The Leaguers'.


	13. The First All-American League - 1942

As the United States entered the Second World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt realised early on that he would require a vast amount of help from the media, as he had during the Great Depression, in uniting the American people to his cause. To help him win the hearts and minds of the United States population, Roosevelt employed the temperamental, but highly successful Vinewood film producer Jack Woltz as his 'Propaganda Advisor'. Woltz, who was also head of the War Activities Committee of the Motion Pictures Industry (W.A.C.), made a number of suggestions to the President, which Roosevelt then implemented, such as founding of the 'Vinewood Canteen' along with film and theatre star Margo Channing. The most ambitious of these propaganda choices though was inarguably the founding of the first 'All-American League' (Not to be confused with the similarly named team from the period, 'The All-Star Squadron').

Woltz was inspired to have Roosevelt commission a secondary American League, with the purpose of representing the patriotic, public side of the military the Government needed to promote, came from his observations of American Football, as the Jewish entrepreneur witnessed how civilians embraced the All-American Team players such as Jay Garrick and Steven Gordon. Woltz then attempted to recreate this passionate public following in the form of a military team, by intentionally choosing members based on appeal, attractiveness and embodiment of 'American values'. On a related sidenote, Woltz wanted to recruit 'super-soldier' Capt. Steve Rogers to this League, but commitments to 'The Invaders' kept him from Woltz's team.

The team Woltz decided on, and then had Roosevelt commission and sign off on, used the following notables:

- Anthony Rogers, a First World War veteran who had spent a considerable amount of time in the Earths distant future after falling into suspended animation whilst investigating a gas leak at a mine in 1927. Rogers was returned to his present time (but slightly later to accommodate for his age change whilst displaced) by the enigmatic time traveller known only by said description. After his return to the 20th century, Rogers used his knowledge of future technology to become a lauded engineer (although he never built anything that may have changed history irrevocably, as The Time Traveller made him promised). Woltz recruited Rogers into the All-American League based partly on the wholesome war veteran's engineering talent, but also largely on his classical, square-jawed handsomeness.

- Steven 'Speed' Gordon, as mentioned in this supplement's introduction, Gordon was a successful football player, and had also previously excelled in Polo during his college years. These sporting achievements were largely over shadowed however after Gordon literally saved the Earth from the rogue planetoid of Mongo, which had been piloted by it's merciless dictator as a warship of sorts. After spending a number of years on Mongo with his allies Jane Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov, Gordon was able to return to Earth in 1938. After establishing his aforementioned football career, Gordon accepted the invitation to the All-American League due to his staunch anti-fascism, and clear patriotism, which made him ideal for Woltz's cause.

- Cliff Secord, an idealistic pilot who was the first of many mid-20th century aviators and agents to operate using a 'rocket-pack', which in Secord's case was designed by mogul and aeronautics pioneer Howard Hughes. Secord had fought crime and fifth columnists in the United States as a government approved vigilante for some time before being enlisted into federal service properly by Woltz. This was in order to provide the All-American League with it's own 'rocket-man', as Nazi Germany-Tomania had multiple divisions by that time based on a rudimentary version of Secord's pack's design. Secord was patriotic as the rest of his comrades, but, like Dr. Jones, buried a cynicism, which made him somewhat irritated by the falseness of the American propaganda machine.

- Dr. Harry Jones Jr., a prolific Archaeologist, and son of First Archaeologist's League member Harry Jones Senior. Significantly, Dr. Jones had been involved in a number of supernatural occurrences involving ancient powers connected to artefacts of which the Archaeologist had been searching for. These experiences had led Dr. Jones into becoming just as much of an adventurer as he had a scientist, and allowed him to become proficient with all manner of firearms and vehicles. With these skills, and his widely admired physical appearance, Dr. Jones was seen as ideal for the All-American League, While in the League, Jones behaved as an intelligently cynical, in notable contrast to his mostly more idealistic teammates, but putting his into a similar position to his good friend Secord.

- Ellen Patrick, a vigilante and serial seductress, Patrick operated under the alias of _'The Domino Lady'_, and used her skills as a crack-shot and University educated chemist, her influence and wealth as a socialite, and, most predominantly, her appeal and allure as a peerlessly attractive woman. Patrick was chosen for the League out of the necessity for a female presence to even the overwhelmingly male presence within the group, although Patrick's perceived personality in her 'Domino Lady' alter ego was not to Woltz's liking. The movie mogul hoped for a more 'Girl Next Door' type figure in Patrick, embodying the wholesome, American values the other League members did, a la Daisy Clover, as opposed to Patrick's more 'Jessica Rabbit' persona. Woltz attempted to alter this aspect of Patrick, but got no further than convincing the femme fatale to change her hairstyle.

The First All-American League were presented to the world in a lavish, highly patriotic ceremony in Washington D.C., where they were formally introduced to a crowd of invited journalists from, amongst other newspapers, _The New York Chronicle _and_ Inquirer,_ as well as_ The Daily Star, Bugle _and _Sentinel_, and military servicemen. After this point, the League were sent on a tour of the United States to sell war bonds, visiting New York, Gotham, the American Metropolis, Central City, Midway City, Los Santos and finally Coast City. After this promotional assignment had passed however, The First All-American League was immediately dispatched to America's wartime confrontations across the world. Initially providing only morale support, posing for photographs with the soldiers and such, the League eventually won the right to participate in enemy engagement after lobbying of Woltz, Roosevelt and General Eisenhower by all members of the group. Such battles, covert operations and other miscellaneous endeavours The League engaged in from that point included:

- Participating in Operation Torch, the Invasions of Sicily and Italy, the Guadalcanal, New Guinea and New Britain campaigns, and the Battles of France, the Bulge and Germany/Tomania. During these American Military undertakings, the League acted as saboteurs, smugglers (giving weapons and supplies to resistance groups) and even double agents, most notably on the occasion Dr. Jones spent as a double agent in Tomania alongside MI6's George 'Mac' McHale, in which they stole an Axis 'Enigma' cipher machine, and were rescued after said theft by Secord in an experimental helicopter.

- Teaming up with what could be colloquially described as a 'Who's who' of adventurers, vigilantes and other notable figures of the World War II period including, aside from the many other aforementioned Allied backed 'Leagues', the Bangallan 'Phantom' Kit Walker, with the League helping the 'Ghost who walks' on a covert mission inside occupied Norway, the Polish-America fighter pilot and resistance member Bart Hawk, with the League assisting his famed 'Blackhawk' squadron, the prolific New Zealand-born saboteur Keith Mallory and his team, in an exploit which took the All-American League into the Bavarian Alps to detonate the mountaintop, Nazi League hosting 'Rotwang Memorial Rocket Facility', where the V2 Rocket was being mass produced. The League also interacted with a menagerie of others not limited to truthless spellcaster Claire Voyant, the Creatures of 'Project M', 'human bullets' Jim and Susan Barr, and naturally, legendary British agents Allan Quatermain Jr. and Mina Murray.

- Returning frequently to the American homefront to help the President and Woltz with their propaganda efforts, often appearing on Radio and at Public Events either as a team or as individual members to further the patriotic cause. Part of this propaganda involved the Britt Reid owned Murdock Publishing serialising the adventures of the All-American League in comic book form from 1943 to 1945. Based off the success of this series, Murdock Publishing commissioned the creation of a wave of merchandise based on the League, which caused great humiliation for the usually reclusive Dr. Jones, and for Patrick, who hoped to maintain a more mysterious image. These toys, games and apparel based on the All-American League were made available never the less from Christmas 1944 and onwards.

- Collaborating with many notable American entertainers by appearing at the many shows hosted by the USO, which became a fitting combination of the All-American League's commitments to propaganda and to military fieldwork. At these events, the League offered inspiring war stories (often heavily romanticised) based on their experiences. Other than these occasions though, the All-American League were mostly content at their USO appearances to take a back seat to dancers like Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont, comics like Bill Miller and Ted Rogers, and singers like Jack Robin.

In April 1945, as the end of the war drew close, the All-American League were summoned back the home front from their work in the invasion of Germany and Tomania. Woltz informed the group in Washington D.C. that they would be using their scientific expertise to help put the finishing touches on a weapon being developed by physicists and engineers at Patrick's old alma meter, The University of California, Berkeley. This project, christened the 'Gotham Island Project', involved a large number of League related elements intertwining in together. Firstly, as the project required radioactive materials, the Mongo originated materials smuggled out of France by Madam Blanc-Sec in 1940 were significantly utilised, and secondly, aside from the presence of the All-American League, other figures who had, and would be significant to the history of the many Leagues of Extraordinary Gentlemen were present at different stages of the project, these notables included Dr. Richard Seaton, Dr. Clark Savage Jr., Dr. Hans Zarkhov, and a very young Dr. Emmet Von Braun. The League of this entry were split up into groups working on different aspects of the Gotham Island Project, causing the individual members to gain varying levels of understanding of what the mysterious operation actually was. The scientific Rogers, with his fluent understanding of advanced technology from his futuristic escapades, and the equally competent Patrick, were tasked respectively with assisting the engineering and chemistry divisions of the Gotham team. Although he was to a scientist, Dr. Jones had little knowledge of the concepts involved with the theoretical side of the project, as so was dispatched with Gordon and Secord to scout the desolate landscape in New Mexico where project leader Professor Kenneth Bainbridge assured the increasingly sceptical Doctor that an important aspect of the test would occur. At this point Jones and Secord began meeting in private, discussing their concern over the nature of the covert activities surrounding the operation, Gordon however was left out of these meetings, as his wholesome patriotism made it difficult for Jones and Secord to ever coax any doubt or scepticism from the football player. Before the project was fully complete, Jones, Secord and Gordon were dispatched to Tramplin, Tomania to guide the final push into the heart of Hynkel's failed reich. On July 16th, after the surrender of the remaining European Axis forces (but prior to the surrender of Imperial Japan), Jones, Secord and Gordon received coded information of the success of Operation 'Trinity', a colossal explosion based on theories of nuclear physics developed by experts such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Swyft. Soon after this test occurred, the Earth-changing atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively ended the war in the Pacific, forcing the shaken Japan into surrender, and beginning the 'Atomic Age'. Once Jones, Secord and Gordon received word of these events, the quickly gained permission to return to the United States, where the former two protested infuriatedly to the newly elected President Thingmaker, who despite his strong liberal political views, had sanctioned the attacks on Japan which had so greatly offended the ethical Secord and Jones. Thingmaker insisted that the bombings were for the 'greater good', and that by utilising the weapons they had prevented the war from dragging on any further and costing any more lives. Jones and Secord were only mildly comforted by the amiable Thingmaker's comments, and merely decided to resign from government service quietly, still feeling a contempt driven guilt that they had, even so distantly, helped allow such a horrible incident. Rogers and Patrick were also shaken by the attacks, and as they had helped even more directly with the Trinity test, the two became depressed and disillusioned. Gordon was the only one of the League that seemed entirely convinced by the 'ethics' of the atom bomb, and debated with his colleagues over their embittered attitude toward the nuclear bombings in Japan. From this point on, the League and its organiser Woltz (the other main benefactor, Roosevelt having died of a stroke earlier in 1945) went their separate ways.

Rogers decided, as despite his sourness toward his involvement in the atom bomb, he still remained somewhat optimistic, rather than developing a cynical view of the world such as what Jones and Secord had. Rogers chose instead to use his knowledge of future technology for peaceful purposes, as opposed to the weapon manufacturing he had done for the government, helping legendary animator and entrepreneur Charles Dingo design his advanced animatronics for the ground-breaking Dingoland amusement park, opened in 1955. Rogers remained with Dingo in this respect for the rest of both the men's careers.

'Speed' Gordon remained in government employment rather than returning to his sporting career, while marrying his long-time partner Dale Arden. Gordon then returned to outer space with the Post-War American Space Program, which he joined as a pilot, assisting the Thingmaker era space fleet with their Atomic Age, extra-terrestrial aims with an undying loyalty.

Cliff Secord also married after the war's end, entering wedlock with actress Jenny Blake, who soon went on to become a successful television soap opera star. Secord himself returned briefly to being an independent superhero, using his rocket-pack to heroically rescue innocents from incidents like high-rise fires and mountaintop disasters which were beyond the reach of most regular emergency services, before eventually retiring with Jenny. Against Secord's will however, the US Government began to utilise lesser versions of the 'rocket-man's' flight enabling device, allowing space program employees such as the previously mentioned spacemen Commando 'Buzz' Corry and Commander Larry 'Cody' Martin, to operate much as Secord had done in the previous two decades.

Dr. Jones Jr. returned to the world of archaeology, with one of the arguable few benefits of a heavily bombed Europe, that of turning up vast amounts of buried artefacts and structures, providing the adventurer-scientist with a plethora of sites to investigate, and to help rid his mind of the terrible anger he felt at the American government. The FBI was well aware of Jones' post-war attitude, and furtively placed him on their list of possible 'Un-American' sympathisers after the end of the Thingmaker era in 1953. This almost premeditated blacklisting caused great trouble for Jones in 1957, when it cost him his job at Marshall College (where the Doctor was working as a Professor of Archeology). Jones went into retirement at this point after a bizarre run-in with Soviet agents in South America.

Ellen Patrick had almost been completely brainwashed into the patriotic, militaristic attitude of the American propaganda machine by the end of the war, with Woltz nearly succeeding in his goal of morphing her from a dark-humoured, promiscuous vigilante to a wholesome military poster girl. The horror of the atom bombing she helped initiate though sent Patrick right back to her old self, with a biting distrust for the exploitative, corrupt nature of American society. Patrick then resumed her 'Mystery Woman' persona as _The Domino Lady_, severing her ties with the government and changing her civilian identity, before targeting mobsters, corrupt politicians and foreign spies in a second iteration of her career, before eventually retiring to Oslo, Norway, having grown fond of it while the All-American League was active there in the war.

Finally, organiser Jack Woltz returned to Vinewood, Los Santos, where he continued quiet successfully as a film producer much as before the war, despite his infamous, and nasty run-in with the New York City based Corleone family late in 1945, after a dispute over the career of crooner Johnny Fontane.

The First All-American League may have caused major disillusionment idealistically in all but one of it's members, while the team was active, the League was extremely effective in the cause of the US war effort, both as a propaganda tool and as a military operation.


	14. The Nazi League - 1942

The third League to be formed in 1942, though this time from a the opposite side of the World War II conflict, The Nazi League was formed by German-Tomanian leader Adenoid Hynkel after the defeat of the 'Twilight Heroes', aka the First German League, at the hands of Janni Nemo and her family in a 1941 incident which also brought down the great Berlin Metropolis. Although this massive setback was devastating for the German-Tomanian war effort, Hynkel and his ministers were quickly able to patch the hole in public moral both in Germany and Tomania, but also in the other Axis states in Italy (called 'Bacteria' in Tomanian), Japan, Freedonia, Moronika, Romania, Finland, Borduria and Meccania. The fascist leaders did this by stepping up on propaganda, and the creation of a new 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' was part of this. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was tasked with developing this League, and the club-footed Hynkel confidant immediately saw this as an opportunity to encourage the prioritising of science and technology as Germany-Tomania's core strength and advantage over the Allies, and a rational foil to those enemy nations reliance on 'Masked Heroes' to provide dynamic reinforcement to their military.

It was by this philosophy that Goebbels chose the members of his League, as they were primarily scientists, or in the case of Capt. Krieger, created with the aid of advanced science. It is worth noting that Goebbels was recorded saying that The Nazi League was not as strong as he had hoped it to be, as key Nazi science figures like Johann Schmidt and Karl Ruprecht Kroenen were unavailable due to their own commitments to other aspects of the Third Reich's eclectic research programs. The League Goebbels did put together for his Fuhrer, Hynkel included:

- Dr. Ilsa Schlimm, the notorious 'She-Wolf of the S.S.', Schlimm was an accomplished physician, and if anything a feminist figure, having gained a reputation within the Nazi ranks few other women ever achieved. After being placed as a warden of numerous concentration camps and P.O.W. prisons across Nazi controlled Europe, Dr. Schlimm's sadism, nymphomania and sheer brutality became clear, as she tortured and raped her prisoners in the name of 'research'. Schlimm was hired to the League for the need of a female member, a requirement seen in many other Leagues over history, but Schlimm was by far no feminine figure, having a muscular build and masculine personality so terrifying to most men around her, that she often daunted them. As a team member, Schlimm unsurprisingly made herself front-and-centre of the group, becoming almost as an unofficial leader with her dominating attitude, but also reportedly by having masochistic, fetish-fuelled sex with each one of her comrades.

- Captain Albrecht Krieger, the biologically engineered 'Super-Soldier', developed by Nazi scientists Johann Schmidt and Christian Szell as the ultimate Aryan man, and an equal to American 'Superheroes' like William Batson, Clark Kent and Steve Rogers. This 'perfect specimen' was originally a staunch pro-Nazi Navy Captain, but Krieger was transformed into a flying, super-strong and unnaturally powerful being by chemicals and training. Capt. Krieger was designed to be the leader of the Nazi League, with his wearing of fascist iconography and ordained, 'poster-boy' status, but as already described, Schlimm's influence brought her into this role. As a regular League member though, Krieger was a brilliant tactician, diligent planner and all-round successful soldier, which was enough to guarantee that he would be a key part of the Nazi League's operations, leader or not.

- Dr. Wichserkopf Merkwürdigliebe, a German rocket scientist who helped considerably in the creation of the V-1 Flying Bomb and subsequent V-2 Rocket. Merkwürdigliebe was a latecomer to the Nazi cause, only joining the party after the 1936 Metropolis Olympics, when The Third Reich was in a position that made it appear the most effective regime in the world, with Hynkel and his cohorts seemingly ready conquer all of Europe. This was seemingly because, more than anything, Dr. Merkwürdigliebe was an opportunistic man, as his later career would prove, the Doctor was capable of changing allegiances without concern to whichever nation he saw as superior to the others. In 1939 however, early on in his service to Hynkel, to whom he became a personal friend, Dr. Merkwürdigliebe was tasked with applying his University of Munich Physics Degree on a soon abandoned 'Flying Saucer' project, where he electrocuted himself while wiring up a prototype vessel. This electrocution blighted Merkwürdigliebe's hair, and damaged his nervous system, causing him to suffer from alien hand syndrome (AHS), which prompted him to wear glove once belonging to Dr. Rotwang on his affected hand, and from a near complete sensory breakdown in his legs, confining Merkwürdigliebe to a wheelchair.

- Capt. Erich Von Stalhein, a German intelligence officer known for his success in World War I, and his frequent run-ins with British fighter ace James Bigglesworth. Von Stalhein was a cunning secret agent and strategist, with great skills in the use of communication technology and proficient in piloting most military vehicles. Despite his middle age at the time of his recruitment to The Nazi League, Von Stalhein was diligent and committed to the cause, providing large amounts of experience, which he generously let on to his teammates. As he approached the half-century mark though, Von Stalhein began to grow cynical toward the Nazi cause; with particular doubts toward the longevity of the fascist Reich Hynkel was promising.

- Dr. Christian Szell, a surgeon and former smuggler who was officially the dentist at Auschwitz, but in reality served as many other things, including a practitioner of cruel human experiments, and as an occasional spy for the Gestapo. Dr Szell's sadism almost equalled that of Schlimm, if not for his more frequent self-restraint. Szell was capable of showing a gentlemanly, passably good-natured side, but this merely masked a pitiless, psychopathic soul, as like most members of the Nazi regime, the innate oppression and cruelty of the fascist system allowed the rise and success of many tyrannical types, who were merely encouraged by a government who would imprison and put to labour and death entire 'races' of people. In this regard, Szell was only one of many similarly sadistic figures, with his horrendous crimes made to look a morbid normal by the sheer amount of such crimes against humanity in the Nazi Germany-Tomania period.

The Nazi League had its official launch at the Reichstag in Tramplin, Tomania in March 1942, and from which point the group began operations from both the underground spaceport south of Tramplin officially known as the '_Reich Raumfartzentrum_' (Reich Space Centre), and the equally secretive '_Rotwang Gedenkstätte Raketenanlage_' (Rotwang Memorial Rocket Facility) in the Bavarian Alps. As a team, the League, much like the First Japanese League, focused mainly on science to begin with, as this was the area the Axis Leaders felt was the area in which their alliance of fascist nations could excel in over the Allies. But just like their Eastern equivalents, The Nazi League were soon forced into action by the turning tide of war, as after the Allied victory in North Africa in 1943, it became clear to the gradually more concerned Reich officials that the war would not be as easy as they had assumed. The most notable exploits of the team during the time they operated were as follows:

- Developing some of the first recorded successful cloning experiments in human history, with the combined knowledge of Doctors Schimm and Szell, along with help from other Nazi Scientists like Josef Mengele, Josef Heiter Sr. and Kurt Dussander, and from notes and other items of research into the science of organic life done by Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the early 19th century, and 're-animator' Hebert West in the early 20th, recovered by Von Stalhein. These experiments were initially only successful on amphibians and domestic animals, but by 1944 Schimm and Szell felt ready to test their cloning machine in the Rocket Facility on human subjects. Originally the two scientists wished to attempt the first ever human cloning operation on a Jewish prisoner, but Hynkel vetoed that option as he felt a 'lesser race' was not worthy of being the claimant to such a scientific and historic honour. Instead Dr. Schlimm chose to carry out the experiment on herself, producing four foetuses with the exact DNA as herself, but which grew at inconsistent rates. These infants were kept under strict quarantine, being given minimal access to the outside world, with only carers sent in the feed, clothe and bathe the young 'specimens'.

- Taking an expedition through the 'Hollow Earth' explored by German Professor Otto Lindenbrook in his 1863-1864 excursion. This trip was not the great success hoped for by Hynkel, who had personally arranged for the adventure, but it was never the less an interesting journey. The Nazi League began their expedition from the opposite direction of Lindenbrook, by piloting a large airship called '_The Richthofen_' downwards through the Italian/Bacterian 'Stromboli' volcano, before becoming lost in the vast caverns under the Earth. After several days of drifting through the cosmos-like subterranean caves, the _The Richthofen _and its German-Tomanian crew emerged through an opening into the realm of Pellucidar, the strange 'Inverted Earth' at the centre of the world's core. This land had been told of by explorers such as David Innes and John Clayton only to be scoffed and disregarded by scientists who considered the location 'implausible'. However, with this world before them, The Nazi League could hardly believe their own senses. Unfortunately, this visit was cut short when a flock of raiding 'Mahar' creatures damaged the _The Richthofen_, forcing the team to make an exit from Pellucidar, this time much more simply via the North Polar opening to the subterranean land. After returning to Tramplin, the bizarre expedition was classified 'Top Secret', and kept heavily under lock and key. (1942)

- The Nazi League assisted the Axis military directly when, as already described, the tides of war began to turn to the Allied favour. This occurred after both the breakthrough of the Axis lines at El Alamein in 'Operation Supercharge' and later more so in the Allied Invasion of North Africa codenamed 'Operation Torch' in 1942. After this point, The League was called upon to drive back the advancing Allies (unsuccessfully) at during the ensuing Invasion of Sicily, and even more so in the following Invasion of Italy/Bacteria. After the Soviet progress in driving back the failed Operation Barbarossa however, The Nazi League was promptly called east to confront them instead. Yet again this deployment was short lived, as Operation Overlord drew The League westward again, where Capt. Krieger duelled with his many Allied contemporaries who were assisting the French coastal landings. Overall as the Allied military intrusions proved overwhelming, a desperate Hynkel called his subordinate group back to Tramplin, where he assigned them 100% onto scientific projects designed to provide as many possibilities for a last minute turn-back of the Allies as could be technologically secured. (1942 – 1944)

For the remaining year of the war, The Nazi League was split off onto scientific projects around what was left of Fascist Europe. Dr. Schlimm was given control of a German P.O.W. camp in which she would perform tests on the human body, with the goal of allowing the creation of more 'Superhumans' like Krieger, but in simpler ways. Capt. Krieger himself was tasked with helping his former instructor Johann Krieger in recreating his formula with a similar intent to Schlimm's. Dr. Merkwürdigliebe was deployed to the Bavarian Rocket Facility to fast-track the 'V3' project, only to find the base destroyed in a joint attack by the All-American League and the sabotage unit led by Keith Mallory, Merkwürdigliebe only narrowly escaping with the three now 'toddler' aged Schlimm clones. Von Stalhein and Szell were given orders to destroy as many concentration camps and their prisoners as possible before they were uncovered by the Allies, but this was made difficult when Von Stalhein abandoned the regime by defecting to Switzerland at midnight during mid 1945, the Great War veteran feeling that this inhumane, war-criminal state was nothing but a poor reflection of the nation he had once known (Von Stalhein defected again after the war to the Eastern Block). At this point, The Nazi League's fortunes took an even worse turn when the original Dr. Schlimm had to be assassinated, as she had gone mad in her nymphomania, using her P.O.W. Camp as her personal 'Sex Laboratory', and becoming completely sidetracked from the cause of war with the Allies. The late Dr. Schlimm's young clones were being kept at the Reich Space Center, where a meeting between the remaining Nazi League members, as Nazi party leaders in general was called as the Battle of Germany-Tomania began. Joseph Goebbels presided over this gathering, where he laid the groundwork for survival plan he had developed for The Third Reich. Dr. Szell would be sent to Brazil with his colleague Josef Mengele, along with the cloning machine blueprints and one of the Schlimm clones, where they would go undercover, and endeavor to duplicate Hynkel (who joined Goebbels in brutal suicide not long after this meeting). Krieger and Merkwürdigliebe however, would guide moon-landing operation to ensure the Reich would at least survive in a hidden Lunar Colony. While Szell and Mengele were successfully dispatched to South America, their aims however fortunate failures, as both war criminals were killed in the 1970s, with their surrogate daughter Ilsa clone going on to become an equally terrible prison warden in San Theodoros under numerous aliases, before being killed herself in 1977. Krieger and Merkwürdigliebe were defeated in their mission also, as described in the 'First All-American League' supplement, however, it came to light that Dr. Merkwürdigliebe had planned for this, having contacted his old compatriot Rosa Klebb while she was serving with the Second Allied League in order to plan his own defeat. Merkwürdigliebe and Klebb had met during the signing of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact in 1939, and kept in contact hence. Merkwürdigliebe knew by midway through the war that Hynkel's regime would not last, and became more certain that the USSR would succeed them as 'Masters of Europe'. To allow this to happen more smoothly, Merkwürdigliebe leaked classified information to Klebb in order to assist the Soviet resistance to the German-Tomanian forces, and eventually informed her of the Spaceport in order to ensure the Russians could uncover it. Unfortunately for Merkwürdigliebe and Klebb, even though the planned proceedings to have The Second Allied League discover the facility after activating a number of machines to attract Alana North's senses, and Klebb responding to this by knowing to investigate the area with a metal detector she took with her especially, it was the Americans under Sergeant Rock who besieged the base, capturing Merkwürdigliebe, rather than the Russians as had been planned. Although this operation had gone awry though, Lt. Col. Klebb was able to steal Merkwürdigliebe's plans for the so called 'Doomsday Machine', and one of the Schlimm clones, during her League's confrontation of Krieger, who was killed in the melee. Klebb brought the plans and the test tube derived child with her when she returned to the Soviet Union, where the 'Doomsday' plans were incorrectly implemented, and the child raised by the Kremlin to become the warden of a Gulag in Siberia. From this point, Merkwürdigliebe changed his name to the Anglicized equivalent and began working with the American Space and Nuclear Programs rather than facing his deserved trials for war crimes due to his usefulness to then President Thingmaker's cause. Hynkel and Goebbels committed suicide in their Tramplin bunker, as has been described history books so oft it requires only a brief mention here. The third Schlimm clone however was plucked from the American-occupied Spaceport by a Pirate/Slaver James Soames, who snuck past American security and abducted the sleeping child, taking her to the Middle East where he sold her to an Oil Sheikh, who raised the young girl as a Harem Keeper.

As a final note on the first, and fortunately only Nazi League, it would appear that the group, disregarding their fascist, war-criminal nature, were actually, at least arguably, a generally successful one, despite eventually falling apart thanks to clashing egos, personal interests, and an allegiance to a failed, dystopian state, where the possession of unbridled power, in a regime based on absolute power, allowed such cruel characters to get away with so much horror.


End file.
